


Red Sun Rises

by MellytheHun



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Beverly Marsh, BAMF Mike, Ben Hanscom Loves Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom is a Good Friend, Beverly Marsh Knows Everything, Beverly Marsh is a Good Friend, Bill Denbrough is a Good Friend, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Crushes, Deadlights (IT), Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Little Shit, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friendship, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mike Hanlon is a Good Friend, Minor Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Minor Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Eddie Kaspbrak, POV Alternating, POV Beverly Marsh, POV Bill Denbrough, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, POV Mike Hanlon, POV Richie Tozier, POV Stanley Uris, Pennywise is His Own Warning (IT), Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Rescue, Rescue Missions, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is His Own Warning, Sassy Stanley Uris, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Soulmates, Stanley Uris is a Good Friend, True Love's Kiss, Violence, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: What if Pennywise had taken Richie rather than Beverly at the end of Chapter One?And then I re-wrote the entire last half hour of the movie? What if I did that, even though no one asked me to, and everyone would probably prefer I not?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 64
Kudos: 204
Collections: ||My favorite fics||





	1. If You Get None

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Homophobia, homophobic language and slurs, bullying, violence, blood, symptoms of a panic attack (cold sweat, nausea, shaking, etc)
> 
> Title taken from the lyrics to Bottom of the River by Delta Rae 
> 
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river.  
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down...
> 
> If you get sleep, or if you get none...  
> (The cock's gonna call in the mornin', baby.)  
> Check the cupboard for your daddy's gun...  
> (Red sun rises like an early warnin'...)  
> The Lord's gonna come for your first born son,  
> (His hair's on fire, and his heart is burnin'.)  
> So, go to the river where the water runs.  
> (Wash him deep where the tides are turnin'.)
> 
> And, if you fall...  
> If you fall...
> 
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river.
> 
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down.
> 
> The wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight.  
> (Drunk, and driven by a Devil's hunger.)  
> Drive your son like a railroad spike.  
> (Into the water, let it pull him under...)  
> But, don't you lift him - let him drown alive!  
> (The good Lord speaks like a roll of thunder!)  
> Let that fever make the water rise...  
> (And let the river run dry...)
> 
> And I said,  
> "Hold my hand!"  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river.
> 
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down.
> 
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way - a long, long, long way -
> 
> Hold my hand,  
> Oh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down.

**AUGUST 1989**

This is the longest the Losers have been apart - ever, maybe - and Richie, while valiantly trying to ignore any oddities presenting themselves as clowns, ventriloquist dolls, misinformed missing posters, or otherwise, is having a rough go of it. This summer was supposed to be fun, and instead it’s been filled with fear, and disgust, and rage, and grief. 

_And_ Bill punched him in the face.

That’s partially why showing off on Street Fighter for this boy comes as such a relief; it’s not as though the loneliness, or feelings of betrayal completely flee him, but he can focus on something else for a little while, and this boy - Donnie - he’s nice to focus on. 

To Richie, Donnie looks sort of like if he mashed Eddie and Stanley together into one person, and an added bonus is that Donnie isn’t inexplicably giving him silent treatment, or secretly thinking he’s worthless.

“You’re fuckin’ good!”

Too comfortable, Richie lets his hand linger a little long on a low-five, but it pays off, because Donnie gives him a look like they both noticed it, and they’re both fine with it - with touching. 

It’s nice. 

For a second, Richie thinks something like, ‘ _oh, maybe I’m not alone in this_ ,’ then the boy says regretfully, “aw, well - I gotta go.”

“Uh, wait!” Richie panics, scared to be left with his thoughts, wanting to ask Donnie something dangerous without actually asking, and so disguises it under, “uhm - how about we go again?” 

Donnie pauses, he’s surprised, but not put off, and so Richie, encouraged, presents his extra playing token, and tries his best to sound aloof, and cool when he asks, “play some more, you know? O-Only if you want to…”

It’s a question wearing a different question as a mask; what he means, and what Donnie seems to hear is ‘do you want to spend more time together? Can I look at you some more? Do you want to be around me a little longer? This is nice, isn’t it?’ 

From where Richie is standing, it looks like Donnie might actually be interested, and maybe - maybe the summer won’t be so bad, maybe Donnie’s gonna stand a little too close, and laugh more at his jokes, or whisper in his ear that they should make out behind the arcade. 

It feels to Richie like the day, if not the summer, is at least salvageable with the heroic efforts of Donnie, so, of course, that’s when Bowers and his cronies enter the arcade from the other end. 

Both Richie, and Donnie notice Bowers right away, though one can sense his presence without looking at him; his hateful rage is a near palpable thing when he enters a room. 

“Dude, why are you being weird?” Donnie asks uncertainly, all prior friendliness evaporated - Richie’s stomach drops into the floor, as Donnie pins on, “I’m not your fucking boyfriend.”

“No, I -” Richie begins, looking panicked, sounding worse, “I didn’t -”

“The fuck’s going on here?” Bowers asks, stepping closer to them both, looking both deadly and manic.

“You assholes didn’t tell me your town is full’uh little faeries,” is Donnie’s ugly response, making it all too clear that he’s abandoning Richie to brave Bowers alone.

Thinking he may get physically ill from the level of anxiety he’s feeling, Richie considers running away, but his feet don’t get the memo, and Bowers stalks closer, a mangy hyena ready to sink his teeth into Richie, and laugh while he bleeds.

“Richie fucking Tozier?” Bowers mocks, “What? You tryin’a bone my little cousin?”

_I should say something_ , Richie thinks to himself, and that’s a grand idea - he’s great at talking! In fact, it’s often cited as his one truly mastered skill, but for the literal, actual life of him, he cannot manage to make words come out of his mouth. 

He’s standing there, frozen, suspended in disbelieving fear, as Bowers gets up in his face, and screams, “get the fuck outta here, faggot!”

Stumbling backwards a few steps, scared to turn his back to Bowers, Richie turns his head a few ways, checking his periphery, seeing the other patrons staring at him, and he’s wondering if he knows anyone there, or how many of those kids go to school with him, calculating to what degree his life is over, and then he hears Bowers scream, “ _fuckin’ move_!”

Still in shock, Richie backs away stiltedly, looking around, trying to evaluate how many people in the arcade know him, if any of them give a shit, how many of them might know Stan, or Bill, or Eddie. 

He turns around, legs feeling weak, he goes to throw one of the doors open and run, not look back, maybe never come back, but the doors don’t budge. 

He wonders if he misremembered the Pull doors as Push doors, and so he pulls on them, jostles them, and they clank, they scrape, they rattle, but they don’t open, and the humiliation of this entire ordeal is making his eyes water.

It’s not just humiliation, though. Humiliation isn’t a nauseating chill crawling up his spine like a frosty spider, and humiliation doesn’t feel like he’s a moment from dropping hundreds of feet. 

Humiliation alone doesn’t make all his arm hairs stand on end, or make his chest constrict so tightly he can almost hear his ribs creaking, and it’s never made him shake, and it’s never given him tunnel vision. It’s never made him want to yell out for his dad.

The public shame has brought with it something else; terror.

Unadulterated terror.

Undiluted, plucked from the vine kind of shadowy, borderless dread.

Disoriented, and fearful, Richie tries the door again with one solid push, using the entire length of the side of his body, but nothing happens. He looks out the glass panel then, and he sees the doors are padlocked from the outside. He’s stuck. 

_Why would someone lock up the arcade from the outside?_ Richie wonders, his entire nervous system feels like a set of electronics flickering on too slowly, _Did Bowers_ **_just_ ** _do that, before coming inside?_

His hands are beginning to shake around the door handles thinking about how Eddie won’t stop fucking talking about the AIDs crisis, how everyone thinks he’s sick in some way or another; he thinks of all the stories he’s heard on the news about boys being strung up in trees, boys being found in trashcans, dismembered, boys disappearing, never being heard from again, and his heart rate doubles.

The arcade attendees are silent behind him; there aren’t any whispers, or laughter, or shuffling feet, even - all he hears are rings, pops, the _zips_ , _pows_ , _vrooms_ , and _splats_ still playfully chiming from the coin-op’s.

He’s nightmarishly frightened to turn around. He’s almost certain that if he does, he’ll find a noose fashioned by Bowers waiting for him, or see hatchets in hands, or even a gun pointed at him. 

All of Richie’s instincts are telling him to get the fuck out of the building, that he is in imminent danger, but besides the front doors, there’s only one another way in and out of the arcade - the way Bowers came in. 

It’s Richie’s only hope of escaping, but it means getting past Bowers, his clique, and everyone else in the place who, apparently, do not care whether he lives or dies. Or, maybe they’re in on it too.

With a fortifying breath, Richie decides he’s going to turn around, and run for his life, no matter what’s waiting there. 

If they try to wrangle him, to hang him from the ceiling, he’ll try to kick his way free, if hatchets and knives are brandished, Richie will keep low to the ground and as far from his attackers as possible. And if there’s a gun, he supposes he’ll have to be faster than a bullet, and inordinately lucky.

He glances to his left, sees a waste basket next to the photobooth, and then he looks to his right - there, next to the door, a fire extinguisher behind a glass panel. 

Fast as lightning, he moves left for the basket, and swings it into the glass, shattering it. He grabs hold of the extinguisher, and finally turns around.

The kids lining the coin-ops are all eerily still, their eyes open, but unseeing, their bodies relaxed, as if hypnotized, but completely unmoving. 

They don’t look at him. 

“What’s the rush, Tozier?” Bowers croons, cracking his neck by tilting it sharply on both sides, “Didn’t you wanna play more?”

“Fuck you, dude,” Richie answers, trembling.

“Yeah, I bet you wish you could,” Bowers sneers, taking a mocking step toward him, just to scare him, and see him jump backward, slam his back on the door, “Who else knows you’re a faggot? Mommy? Daddy? How about all those other fuckin’ losers you hang out with? B-B-B-Billy Denbrough know you suck cock?”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Richie shouts, eyes glassy, bile in his throat.

“Oh! Struck a nerve!” Bowers laughs, “So, maybe they don’t know, huh? Maybe someone oughta tell ‘em. Bet that fuckin’ Make A Wish Foundation contender you’re always droolin’ over would like to know. Bet he would run for the hills, huh? Wouldn’t wanna get all sick from you, wouldn’t wanna catch the queer.”

“Fucking shut up!” Richie demands, his grip loose on the extinguisher because of the sweat building in his palms, “You don’t know anything! You don’t know anything about me!”

“Sure I do. I see you, y’know,” Bowers mutters, his face contorted with the manic joy he feels at hurting others, and the genuine disgust he so clearly holds for Richie, “See you lookin’ at boys in school. See you lookin’ at the weedy kid that can’t take two steps without puffin’ his fuckin’ inhaler. Yeah, I fuckin’ know you, Tozier. You make it easy. Bein’ an honors student, I’d’ve thought you’d be smarter than to be so fuckin’ obvious.”

Shakily, Richie holds up the extinguisher, unsure of how to actually use it, but gathering what courage he has left, he tightens his hold, straightens his shoulders, and he says back indignantly, “that’s pretty rich coming from a guy who wouldn’t know how to get water out of his boot if the instructions were written on the fuckin’ heel.”

The shooting game next to Bowers falls victim to his innate violence; he rips the plastic rifle off the control board in a rage, and comes charging at Richie like a bull, screaming out as he does. 

Richie ducks low, and holds the extinguisher up over his head just as Bowers is slamming the rifle down over him.

“Fuck!” Richie yells, keeping close to the ground, and trying to work around Bowers, the extinguisher functioning as his shield.

There’s another strike, he falls fully onto the floor, his hold falters, the extinguisher hits his face as the plastic rifle pounds down on it again, and his glasses start to slide down his nose. He thinks he might have a cut on his head, because he feels something wet under his fringe.

Knowing another impact is coming, Richie rolls away, and in the few seconds he has before Bowers practically dislocates one of his spinal discs with a powerful blow, he sees a diagram on the back of the extinguisher - and he gets the gist. 

The impact on his back knocks the wind out of Richie, the pain making him heave - his head is uncovered, though, he knows he has to move fast, and despite his injuries, he forces himself to.

Turning to face Bowers, Richie improvises, and before the rifle can make contact with him again, he juts his leg out as hard as he can, kicking Bowers in the groin with so much panicked force, he hears Bowers gag from the pain.

Realizing he’s bought himself a few precious moments, Richie gets up off the floor, but a bit too fast - the room spins, he bumps into a motionless body standing in front of the Pac-Man game, he stumbles into one of Bowers buddies; no one moves. He thinks that maybe this is all a nightmare, and he’ll wake up in his bed soon.

As Bowers is recovering enough to stand up straight again, Richie yanks the pin from the extinguisher, and puts his hands on the lever and nozzle like he’s got a loaded gun.

“I’m gonna make you pay for that, faggot,” Bowers snarls, stomping toward him again.

Instinctively, Richie presses down on the lever, and directs the pressurized CO2 right at Bowers’ abdomen, and Richie skids backward with the force with which it shoots out. 

He hears a grunt, and a thud (a body hitting the ground), and a groan of pain (and possibly some retching), but he doesn’t stop spraying until there’s nothing left. 

When he’s breathless, and only slightly less terrified, he sees that he’s painted the arcade from ceiling to floor, created a white fog through the entire hall, all of it floating around, constricting the air. 

His lungs begin tightening up, his eyes are starting to burn, his throat’s convulsing - he decides to turn and run while he still can, but just as he does, a hand shoots out from the fog, grabbing his ankle.

Bowers wrenches him down to the ground again - _hard_ \- Richie’s tailbone takes the brunt of it, making him shout in pain. 

Kicking aimlessly, barely landing anything on Bowers, panicked, and choking, Richie is dragged into the fog, where he is rendered mostly-blind. 

Richie doesn’t feel the extinguisher leave him as much as he registers that it is no longer in his hands, because he finds himself using his hands to smack, and punch blindly at Bowers, while Bowers drags him further into the miasma. 

As he struggles against Bowers’ hold, Richie’s glasses fall off, so when Bowers boxes him in, looming over him, Richie can only see a blurry figure with bloodshot eyes, and a white face, and he’s gone cold in his bones at the sight. 

“Get off me! Get off!”

“What, Tozier? Don’t you wanna kiss?” Bowers taunts, reeling his arm back to deliver what would undoubtedly be a bone-smashing punch to Richie’s face, if Richie’s instincts had failed him.

As it is, Richie’s torso twists to the right, he reflexively grabs the dropped extinguisher with both hands, and then swings back to the left, and bashes it against Bowers’ skull with all his might before Bowers can touch him again.

Limp, Bowers totters down like a failed attempt at Jenga, landing crudely on the floor, to Richie’s left. 

Realizing Bowers is unconscious, Richie drops the extinguisher again, scrambles backwards, coughing, really choking on the fumes now - blood is pooling under Bowers’ head. 

He’s out of the clutches of immediate danger, though. Maybe it makes him a bad person, but he finds that he doesn’t really care if Bowers lives or dies there; he’s a hateful boy, and he’s a dangerous threat, and he would have killed Richie. So, Richie doesn’t run to get help. He runs to get away.

About as graceful as a newborn faun, Richie convinces his aching, and wobbly legs to get him through the arcade, down to the hall, and there - down to the left is the other exit. 

He races to it, desperate for fresh air, for safety, for his bike, so he can pedal home at top speed; he thinks of Eddie, how he might sneak into Eddie’s room by way of the pear tree in his front yard, because an inhaler sounds great right about now. 

He’s so frantic, he’s got his arms stretched out in front of him, just so he can feel the door under his fingertips, and really know he’s safe. When he makes contact, he throws the door open, and just as the sunlight hits him, a gloved hand takes hold of his neck, and though it’s blurry, he knows he’s looking into a white face, with red and gold eyes.


	2. Your Daddy's Gun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: No trigger warnings for this chapter!

Beverly thinks all the boys she knows are too proud, and she’s mostly right. Boys are always proud, she thinks, they hate apologizing (especially to each other), but something has to be done.

When Bill drops her home, telling her that he doesn’t think the Losers will recover from their fight, she decides to break the chain of command. 

If Bill won’t extend an olive branch to Richie, then she will. She’ll find a way to make it right between them all; she’s got to, or something terrible will come for them all. She can feel it. They need each other.

The first reparation needs to be between Richie and Bill, though. She thinks they both need to apologize to each other, but more than that is the fact that Beverly doesn’t think the Losers can work as a cohesive team without Bill to lead them. 

Bill is the common denominator, and Richie is a strong personality (to say the least), so when they don’t gel, things just can’t get done; and this looming terror, following them all around Derry - it needs to be dealt with.

For whatever reason, her feminine wiles have never worked on Richie, but she’s not opposed to trying to win his favor some other way - if she can’t lure him in with honey, she’ll use vinegar. 

A few days after the big fight, she stops by the Tozier household to strong-arm Richie over to Bill’s house, where she plans to mediate an intervention, but Richie’s worryingly disinterested mother informs her that she’s not seen him all day. 

“Uhm - do you know where he might have gone to, then, Mrs. Tozier?” she asks delicately, finding it odd how prim and proper Richie’s mother is; she looks like she stepped out of a vintage ad for microwaves or something, so unlike the messy, silly boy Beverly knows. 

Every shiny, dark curl is ironed in place, her makeup is light, her nails are polished, and she’s wearing a blue dress, flats, and an apron. She smells like herbs, and some kind of floral perfume, she has modest jewelry on, and it’s clear Richie gets his eyes, and lips from her, but he must have gotten his nose from his father, because his mother’s is a cute little button nose. 

She seems so lovely, but she’s detached. Not cold, precisely, but unavailable; as if someone built her out of a manual on maternal figures. Maybe she would be lovely, if she weren’t stuck in Derry.

“I would imagine that if he’s not here, and not out with his friends, then he’s probably at the arcade, dear.”

It’s certainly one of the nicer terms her peers’ parents have used for her - she supposes Richie hasn’t told his mother about her. Why would he, after all? They’re friends, but it’s not as though she comes over to read comic books, or listen to cassettes. 

Before she can leave, Mrs. Tozier does ask whether Beverly is Richie’s girlfriend, though, which is a question Beverly faces with almost every parent of a boy she encounters. 

She doesn’t get why older folks can’t seem to conceptualize platonic relationships between boys and girls, but she’s as polite about it as she can be.

“No, just a good friend, Mrs. Tozier.”

“Mm,” she mumbles, eyes oddly blank, a sad sigh escaping her, “No, I suppose you wouldn’t be.”

Beverly doesn’t know what to say to that - she doesn’t know what it means - so, she tactfully parts ways with Mrs. Tozier, and bikes to the arcade.

As soon as she pulls up, she’s met with a scene of chaos; there are police cars with their lights going, one officer out in the street, screaming at Bowers, who appears to have a head injury, and a lot of arcade regulars seated on the curb, rubbing their eyes and heads. 

Upon closer inspection, Beverly can see that they’re not crying, but rather all seem to have some sort of migraine they’re trying to collectively alleviate, and also all complaining about. 

It’s an odd sight, and it doesn’t sit right with Beverly.

She doesn’t see Richie among them, but something tells her to stick around; her intuition tells her that he should have been here. 

She knows that Richie is unlikely to venture out to the quarry alone, or even the clubhouse - none of the Losers are communicating, so he wouldn’t be at someone else’s house, and he wasn’t at his own. 

Derry is small, and Richie’s attention span is even smaller. He’d either be at the movies, or at the arcade, and with no one to spoil upcoming plot twists for every ten minutes, the arcade is the only place that makes sense.

Biking quickly, before the officers spot her moving to the side entry, she drops her bike in the alley way between the arcade, and the convenience store beside it, and she lets herself in through the side door.

As she tip-toes down the hall, she hears adults talking about a possible fire, but no evidence of one - “I think one of the kids probably just got rowdy, and sprayed the extinguisher. Kids do stupid shit like that all the time,” - “Doesn’t explain why none of those kids out there remember it happening,” - “You realize the amount of nitrogen and C-O-two in the air, right? Those kids are lucky they didn’t suffocate in here.”

“There’s blood on the extinguisher, though.”

Her eyes widening, Beverly leans closer against the turn of the wall, listening intently.

“On the floor here too,” another voice inserts, “Honestly, it looks like a scuffle here, near the entry doors.”

“It was probably Bowers’ kid,” a third man says, “He’s always gettin’ into shit. Probably thought it’d be fun to blast one’uh the little suckers with all those fumes, and the force of it comin’ out made him hit himself in the head, or somethin’. Or maybe one of his buddies wised up, and thought to whack him with it, and just ain’t fessin’ up yet.”

“Alright, well, all those kids need seeing to still. Doesn’t seem like anything some Tylenol, and rest can’t fix, but looks to me like this was all just some hooligan nonsense that got outta hand.”

They establish amongst each other that they’re decided on their evaluation of the scene, and Beverly dares to look into the arcade room as the officers leave through the front doors.

She steps out into the room, looking around at the odd disarray, and she feels uneasy; like there’s a giant billboard sign right in front of her, telling her something important, but she just can’t see it. 

Something is really wrong about it all, and putting it on Bowers seems like an easy scapegoat where there are still a lot of variables that can’t be explained by just teenaged boys acting like fools. 

She walks in further, examines the floor by the entryway doors - she sees what the officers were talking about, how there’s signs of a struggle on the floor, scuff marks and stuff, like people were wrestling. 

There’s blood droplets on the floor too, and strangely clear footprints by all the games, as if everyone was standing in place when the extinguisher went off, and then they didn’t move for some time. Also, all the footprints are facing outward, like everyone was stock-still, watching something at the center-front of the room.

There’s still some white stuff floating around in the air, and Beverly coughs into her elbow. Something strange has definitely happened here, and she wants to go warn Bill about it. She doesn’t think it’s safe to be there alone. 

Unnerved now, and deciding to leave - she turns back toward the way she came, and hears something crack under her shoe.

She looks down, and to her horror, she recognizes Richie’s glasses; there’s some blood on them too.

Crouching down, and with trembling hands, she picks up the glasses, scrutinizing them, like she’ll be able to see whatever Richie saw, if she looks through them right. She knows he’s all but blind without them - he wouldn’t leave them behind at the arcade, even if there was a fight, or something scared him. It’s a bad omen.

When she holds them up to her eyes, and gazes out through the Coke bottle lenses, she sees the white, fuzzy particles in the air move around like ghosts, and then they freeze. 

She lifts her eyes to look over the frame of Richie’s glasses as the debris in the air stills, and then smacks the entryway doors, painting them. Then, after a moment of quiet, like a finger pushing around the fog on a mirror, she sees the words being spelled out across the doors, the billboard now clear as day:

YOU DIE IF YOU TRY 

“Richie!” she cries, gasping in fright, as she turns to run away; she thinks she hears jovial laughter coming from somewhere above her - or maybe below. 

Holding tight to Richie’s glasses, she runs out the way she came in, hops on her bike, and takes every shortcut and cowpath she knows to get to Bill’s house.

She’s sweating, and huffing by the time she arrives. She doesn’t bother standing her bike up, just leans off it, nearly falling, and leaps to Bill’s porch, knocking incessantly, and ringing the doorbell until he shows himself.

“Beverly?” Bill wonders, stepping out his front door, “Wh-what’s wrong?”

“Richie -”

“N-Not this again. H-He needs to g-g-grow up -”

“No, Bill!” she intercepts, showing him the glasses, “It got Richie.”

His eyes snap from the glasses, back to her expectant stare; he might be in some measure of shock, because he still seems confused for a beat.

“Wh-what?”

“ _It_ , Bill,” she emphasizes, eyes wide with urgency, “It got Richie.”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Bill curses, his face growing pale, his hands raking his hair, “I-I’ll call Stan, Ben, and Eddie, I’ll t-t-tell them to m-mmmeet us on Neibolt - h-how fast can you g-get to Mike’s?”

“I’ll leave right now, and see you on Neibolt in half an hour,” she promises, turning back to rush onto her bike.

“W-Wait!”

She turns around, and Bill points to his open garage, and tells her, “t-take Silver. N-No one in the w-world’s faster.”

“Really?” she asks, eyeing the bike from the pavement.

“If you sh-shut your eyes at j-just the right time, he’s so fast, he t-takes off like a r-rrrocketship, and you can feel yourself fl-flying.”

“Will he listen to me, though?” Beverly inquires, moving toward Silver nonetheless, “He’s your bike, after all. Maybe he only does all that for you.”

“N-No,” Bill assures her, “He knows you’re s-s-sp-special.”

If she had the time to spare to give Bill a kiss for that, she would, but she knows time isn’t on their side, so she mounts Silver, and speeds away so fast that she’s just a blur to Bill as she turns the corner of the block.

He takes her bike off the sidewalk, and places it where Silver usually waits, then he jogs back into the house, and dials Stan’s house.

“Uris residence.”

“Uh, hi, Mrs. Uris, is S-Stan home?”

“Oh, Bill! Hello! Yes, he is, I’ll get him for you.”

Leg bouncing with jitters, Bill glances at the clock in the kitchen, and listens to Mrs. Uris’s muffled voice call for Stan. The beat it takes Stan to get to the phone feels like an hour, but the kitchen clock says it takes twelve seconds.

“Hello?”

“S-Stan - It got Richie.”

“Oh, I’m doing very well, Bill, thanks for asking,” Stan replies sarcastically, “What do you -”

“Stan, It - _It_ , It g-got Richie.”

There’s silence on the line, Bill is worried Stan won’t believe him, but then Bill can hear the trembling in Stan’s breathing when he exhales sharply, and whispers, “no - no, that can’t be right. He’s probably just -”

“Your his b-best friend, Stan.”

It’s hard to tell over the receiver, but Bill thinks Stan might be crying.

“No, I know - I know. Uhm - so - what - what do we do, Bill?”

“Get to Neibolt as fast as you can, okay?”

There’s hesitation, he knows Stan is petrified of Neibolt, or It, and Bill doesn’t blame him, he’s scared too, but they’re Richie’s only hope. 

Glancing at the clock again, Bill doesn’t have the time or patience to sell a rescue plan to anyone, so he simply tells Stan, “you don’t h-hhhave to do anything you don’t w-want to, Stan, b-but he’d do it for you. You know he w-would.”

He waits to see if Stan will respond to that, but after a few seconds of silence, Bill decides to hang up. He figures that if Stan can be brave for Richie, he’ll show up, but it’s out of his control. He can’t make Stan - or anybody - do anything they don’t want, and he _knows_ Stan doesn’t want to go back into Neibolt. 

He really hopes that Stan shows, though. As close as Bill is to Richie, he knows Stan is closer, and if anything bad happens to Richie beyond what has already happened, he knows Stan won’t forgive himself. 

And if Richie comes home safe, and finds out that Stan was unwilling to help him in his hour of most dire need, Bill knows that will break Richie’s heart. 

When he calls Ben’s house, it’s the quickest interaction he has; Ben picks up, he’s glad to hear from Bill, and when Bill says ‘It got Richie,’ Ben doesn’t falter.

“Neibolt?”

“How f-fast can you be there?”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Bill doesn’t even get a second to thank Ben - Ben hangs up, and must be racing out the door already. The thought warms Bill’s heart; Ben is a reliable sort, he’s good, and kind, and quickly loyal. Bill can’t help but be really glad in that moment that he and Richie both have a friend in Ben.

Bill worries about calling the Kaspbrak household, he knows that as soon as Mrs. Kaspbrak hears his voice, she’ll hang up, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to reach Eddie, he considers calling until he can leave a message on their answering machine, but thankfully, Eddie is the one that picks up.

“Hello?”

“Eddie, it’s Bill - It got R-Richie.”

“H-How -”

“We’re going to g-get him. Will you m-mmmeet us there? Can you?”

There’s a moment of consideration, and then Eddie tells him assuredly, “I’ll figure it out,” and hangs up.

With nothing more he can do, Bill grabs his empty school bag by the front door, puts it on his back, and moves as fast as he can to Beverly’s bike. 

He tries to formulate some kind of plan while he rides, but all that’s blaring in his head is how Richie shouted, and nearly cried when he saw a Missing Poster of himself. He thinks about how tightly Richie hugs, always like it’s the last time he’ll ever see anyone again, how he glows with pride when he gets someone to laugh, how the last thing he did with Richie was scream at him, and punch him. 

What’s worse is that Bill knows Richie was right - he knows. He knows he won’t see Georgie again. He knows it in his heart, some part of him knew it from the start, and he hates it, and it’s eating him raw from the inside out, he doesn’t want to face the grief, because it’s so big, it blocks out the sun. And he knows he put everyone in danger, going to Neibolt the first time.

Everyone was petrified, Ben and Eddie got seriously hurt, and all Bill could think about was going back in there, and getting revenge. He justified it with pretty speeches about their civil duties, protecting the community, but all he ever meant was ‘that evil piece of shit took my baby brother from me, and I want to kill it.’ 

Richie called him out on that, and he hit Richie, he pushed Richie, as if they all aren’t pushed around enough already.

He wants the chance to apologize to Richie. He needs to save Richie.

By the time he’s turning onto Neibolt, he’s hearing tires behind him - Beverly and Mike pull up, Ben arrives within the same minute, then Stan, and then, miraculously, Eddie. 

Once they’re outside of the Neibolt house, they all drop their bikes (all but Stan, who, as always, takes the time to stand his up), and they silently move forward, as a team.

Eddie tears off his fanny pack, and throws it into some tall grass, looking a little manic (or, more so than usual), and Bill crouches down to collect a fallen fence post, to put in his backpack.

They walk in through the front door, Bill at the head, but then he hears Ben say, “Stan?”

The Losers turn around to look at Stan; he looks physically ill, like a man about to be hanged at the gallows, gaunt, and tortured. 

“Come on, Stan,” Beverly tells him, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist, “We need to do this together.”

“She’s right,” Bill inserts, “If we s-split up like last time, that clown will kill us one by one. But if we s-ssstick together, all of us, we’ll win. I promise.”

Those words reverberate through the group, all of them knowing it’s a lie. They all know Bill is as educated on monster-hunting as the rest of them, and that making promises to anyone, about anything is dangerous at best, and cruel at worst. 

Bill can’t possibly know that they’ll rise victorious from this encounter, Bill can’t possibly promise that, but all the same, Stan follows, lagging at the rear, but he follows. 

It’s all anyone can ask of him.

They carry themselves like a funeral processional, solemn, quiet, and something silent weighing heavy on them all as they move through the halls.

When they reach the basement, Eddie approaches the well first, peering down, and yelling for Richie, to no response.

As the rope is unraveled, Eddie moves to climb down first, but Bill slows him down with a hand on the shoulder.

“Let me go f-first,” Bill offers, and it’s clear what he means; _if the rope breaks, I want it to be me that falls, and not any of you_.

Begrudgingly, Eddie allows it, but as soon as Bill finds his footing in a tunnel opening, and lets go of the rope, Eddie takes hold, and descends right after.


	3. An Early Warning

Blood dripping onto Richie’s face rouses him.

As he sits up, he finds that his right side body is numb, he's got pins and needles on the right side of his face, and he's sort of nauseous. He’s unsure if he fainted, or was knocked out by Bowers, but he’s weak, disoriented, and as he gets onto wobbling legs, and unsteady feet, he finds himself thinking, _this is bad. Something bad happened. I shouldn’t be here. I need to get out of here, I need to get to help._

Went, his father, used to carry him inside, and tuck him into bed when he'd fall asleep in the car, back when he was still very small, and was a little more conveniently travel-sized. The last time Went ever did that, Richie was eight years old, and he remembers it because he wasn't really asleep; he just wanted his dad to pick him up.

He was sleepy, but he could have opened his eyes, he could have gotten up and out of the car himself, but he let his father unbuckle his belt, scoop him up, and walk him into their house, into his room, and then he pretended to wake up upon hitting the mattress.

Went had smiled at him, and said, 'hey, bud. You been dreamin'?' and Richie had nodded.

Richie remembers how his father took his shoes off for him, helped him into his pajamas, tucked him into bed, kissed his head, and when he left Richie's room, he left the door slightly ajar, so the hall light could come in, burn away any nightmares, and he'd wished Richie sweet dreams.

He wishes his father were with him now, to carry him somewhere safe, and warm; as it is, he's freezing, and his tired legs fail him, and he falls onto his hands and knees, right into a puddle that gives him prickly goosebumps; the smell of it clears his mind of everything but warning sirens in an instant. 

He knows that smell - it’s grey water.

All at once - a hand around his throat, a face-splitting grin, eyes like lava - he remembers. He remembers where he is, and how he got there.

He lifts his head, looking for any sign of the clown, but the place is quiet. 

His eyes rove slowly, counting his exit points, but soon his eyes fall onto a wooden circus train car for _Pennywise, the Dancing Clown_. It’s old, decrepit, but it looks authentic, like the shapeshifter happened upon the real Pennywise, and stole his identity centuries ago. 

Nothing can prepare Richie for what he finds above it, though; sitting atop, and around the train car is a massive pile of all sorts of garbage, but it all looks like kids’ stuff - backpacks, bikes, shoes, and then, what’s above the junk pile. 

It looks like a web made by a funnel spider, and caught in it are floating children, all seemingly unconscious, or dead, some of them in partially decomposed states, some of them partially eaten, some of them twitching, or moving in a way that makes Richie think they might still be barely alive.

At catching a glimpse of an old classmate's disembowelment, Richie gags, gets up on his feet again and runs, trying a particular metal door that must be sealed from the other side.

It’s the arcade all over again, him grappling for some hinge, or handle, or any sign of give, but there’s nothing.

“ _Step right up, Richie! Steeepppp right up_!”

Scared of what he may see, Richie stiltedly turns to look over his shoulder, and finds there’s a music box in front of the train car, winding itself up.

He stares at it, and wonders if his parents will remember him at all, or if they’ll forget him right away.

_Hey, bud. You been dreamin'?_ \- God, Richie wishes he were.

“ _Come change, come float! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cheer, you’ll_ **_die_ ** \- _introducing Pennywise, the dancing clown_!” 

A miniature clown bursts from the music box, and then the wooden cart opens, revealing Pennywise dancing in what looks like a mouth of flames. It’s expression is almost angered, It’s face is serious, and perfectly centered while It’s body is dancing around like a jester to loud, quickening carnival music. It's an unsettling thing to observe, to say the least.

If asked beforehand, Richie wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what he wanted to see before he died, but he knows now that he’d really be fine with anything but this. 

Some animal instinct in him tells him to move, even though he knows he's hopelessly trapped, so he starts toward what appears to be an exit on his left, maybe making it two steps toward the chosen tunnel, but Pennywise takes a cartoonish leap, and stops him by the neck again, lifting him into the air.

Richie punches wildly, writhing, trying to get free as Pennywise growls, makes a sort of mocking ‘oohh-ho-ho-ho!’ exclamation, then screams in his face, forcing out some laugh-adjacent noise that only a non-human creature could make; It’s enjoying itself, like Richie’s fight for air is a great, big joke. 

And it probably is, to It - one great, big joke. 

Gasping a little, face hot with blood, Richie feels his anxiety taken over by indignation - he's not a joke. His life isn't a joke.

He knows that's what he's made it, that it's what he's made himself out to be, and he knows that's why Pennywise struggled so much to find a form that actually scared him, because he knows - _he knows_ \- that when he told the Losers he was scared of clowns, what he meant was that he's scared of himself.

He's the dinner entertainment, he's the rising star new to the stage, he's the voice on the radio in the evenings, and the news anchor in the mornings; he's always moving, graceless, stupid, he's always trying, he's always balancing on a tightrope, he's always jumping through flaming hoops, swallowing swords, falling down, getting pies thrown in his face by his own reflection, and people laugh, but it isn't funny. Not really. Because, if he stops - if he rests for just one second, if he breaks a sweat, if he stops being so fun, so easy-going, so trashy, and silly, and ridiculous for even a moment, then people will notice that he exists in other ways.

Someone might see other dimensions to him, and he can't risk that - not in Derry.

It's why the Missing Poster scared him so bad, Richie thinks. It scared him, because it was real. Because whether it was because of some demon clown, or boys like Bowers getting a hold of him, in Derry, he could go missing any day of the week. He knows. He knows it's dangerous for him, for boys like him - he saw that Missing Poster, and he replayed every grotesque crime scene photo of queer boys hanged in trees, or tied to posts, bloody, and sagging, he's seen on the news, and he heard Eddie's voice in his head, all high-pitched, and rambling about the AIDs epidemic, those bodies stacked in dumpsters outside hospitals all because shamed parents wouldn't come collect the bodies of their forsaken children...

When Richie told the Losers he was scared of clowns, what he'd meant was, 'I'm scared of myself, so please stop looking so closely, or you might get hurt too, just by being near me, just for seeing me for what I really am.' And when that demon closed in on Eddie, with his broken arm, crying, and cursing hoarsely, and all Richie could do was tell Eddie not to look at the clown, because it was him, it was Richie, it was the illness and danger inside Richie, it was everything Richie had truly feared.

The closer the clown got to Eddie, the more lethal danger Eddie was in, the more Eddie could see it for the diseased, evil thing It innately is, and that's Richie, he's the clown he's most scared of. And, it wasn't funny. It was sad, and petrifying, and disgusting, and if Richie didn't hate himself before Neibolt, he certainly hated himself after.

He doesn't want his life to be a joke anymore. He's tired of all the gymnastics, and secrets.

He can't be safe in Derry, he never was safe here, but Eddie is safe from _him_ right now, and breathing's overrated if it's got nothing to do with cigarettes, or laughter, so he won't mind the pressure on his throat.

He'll mind the disrespect, he'll mind that this ugly motherfucker laughs at him, like the show's for It - the show's never been for It. The show's always been for Eddie, for the Losers, for Richie, for safety, for the sake of laughing rather than crying.

Heart lurching with hate, Richie glares down at Pennywise, and stops struggling, though he keeps his hands on It’s wrists. 

Curious that Richie has stopped fighting, Pennywise calms down some, shows It's too-many teeth in a sickening smile, and asks, “what’s wrong, Trashmouth? Aren’t we having fun?”

Gathering what he can at the back of his throat, Richie scowls, and hacks a loogie into It’s face, then quickly grinds out between clenched teeth, “your schtick is overdone. I’m not afraid of you, you dumb fuck.”

Very apparently offended, Pennywise leans in close to smell him, pulls away in disgust, shaking his head, with his costume jingling as he looks dismayed for a moment. 

_Maybe It won’t eat something that’s not frightened_ , Richie thinks. 

For one brief, beautiful moment Richie believes he might get away.

Gold, preternatural eyes bore into him, Richie’s spit sizzles off Pennywise’s face, and Pennywise pulls their faces closer together to warn him, “ _you will be_ ,” before opening It's mouth, watching as the slits spread across It's face, and It’s entire head splits four ways, revealing a dark, slick maw.

As It’s face deconstructs before him, exposing rows, and rows of pointed teeth like thorns, and red, shiny flesh undulating in an odd rhythm, Richie is drawn to what must equate to the back of It’s throat.

Three spinning orbs of seraphic light move into Richie’s consciousness, he feels them in his head, in his eyes, swimming through his synapses, nudging into the spaces between the molecules that shiver and heat to keep him real, and corporeal. 

He can’t look away; they are not dead things, but they are not living either, and they are light, but they're made up of darkness. 

They are not good things, but they are warm, numbing, treacherously beautiful, an unknowable horror. 

His hands fall from Pennywise’s wrists as his body goes slack, and he begins to float into the air.


	4. Firstborn Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Physical assault, racial bigotry, homophobic language/slurs, blood, violence, Bill's survivor's guilt, food mentions

Being the physically strongest among them, Mike is the last to descend into the well by the rope, as he keeps hold of it for everyone else to go down first, spotting them. 

It’s as he’s readying himself to join the rest of them that he’s struck from behind; dizzy, and with his eyes a little cloudy, Mike vaguely understands that Bowers is now standing over the well, pulling the rope out of reach from Bill, and everyone else he hears yelling for him.

Bowers turns to him, and Mike doesn’t know that he’s ever seen a person as maddened, or unhinged in his life. Bowers is wild-eyed, bruised, torn up, dirty, and covered in blood. He may have been bleeding from his head at some point, as there’s a lot of blood congealed on the side of his face, but there’s shiny, new, wet blood splatter all over his face, and that doesn’t seem like his own.

“Real sad about your faggot friend,” Bowers sneers, his voice like the growl of a rabid dog over the white noise of Mike’s friends calling for him, frightened for him, “History does love repeating itself. First your crackhead parents, now the fruit cup - just goes to show none of you belonged in this fuckin’ town to begin with. I told you, didn’t I? I told you to stay out of my fuckin’ town.”

Fending off another attack from Bowers, Mike winds up in a struggle with him on the ground; Bowers gets a hold of the captive bolt gun, though, and holds it to Mike’s head, which might have been the end for anyone else. 

Bowers looks completely insane, like a feral child, or something, he's grinning, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, it’s not real happiness, it’s something flat, and bizarre, painted on crudely. 

He knows Bowers intends to kill him, he's known that for as long as he's known Bowers himself, and through some combination of an unbreakable will to live, just enough spite, and a little bit of luck, Mike is able to push Bowers’ arm just enough out of the way that the bolt very barely misses killing him when Bowers pulls the trigger.

There’s a moment there that Bowers is stunned, as if he expected Mike to just lie down and die, and so in that moment of Bowers’ confusion, Mike grabs a rock with his right hand, and brings his arm up high, and hard, smashing it against Bower’s already injured head.

Clearly suffering from several wounds, Bowers gets up to his feet, maybe to collapse somewhere else, or maybe to be sick on himself, Mike isn’t sure, but he isn’t taking any chances. Not with Bowers - not anymore. 

As Bowers staggers back, perhaps unable to fight anymore, Mike rises, charges at him, and pushes him down the well, where Bowers’ body slams and spins against the walls of it with audible bones breaking, and a dense silence implying his death.

Eddie screams out for Mike, and Mike looks down the well to where the Losers are sticking their heads out, assures him he’s okay, though he’s got blood on his face and hands enough that he’s not sure they entirely believe him.

Even so, they all sigh with relief, and motion him to come down, which is precisely what Mike resumes doing. However, as Mike readies the belt of ammunition he brought, it begins to slip over the lip of the well; Beverly tries to warn him when she spots the sliding, but it’s too late, and the magazine of bolts falls down. Mike is only able to load one bolt into the gun in that time.

Satisfied that Mike is safe (or, as safe as any of them are right now) Stan, who has found himself at the back of the group, thinks he hears Richie call for help in the momentary peace that follows the verification that Mike isn't dead.

Raspy, kind of crackly with the beginnings of puberty, and loud, and it’s very clearly Richie’s voice, Stan would recognize it anywhere - he doesn’t think to tell the others, because he thinks they’ve heard it too. 

Under the impression that the Losers must be following close behind, Stan crawls toward the sound of Richie’s voice, and though he only turns one, or two ways, he somehow finds himself in another wide, circular opening that looks like it may have been a maintenance check point. He thinks it was used by public workers at some point, because he sees stairs, and a metal door, but it's clearly an abandoned place, wet, moldy, and here, he's surrounded by different tunneled pathways which further dizzies him.

He quite abruptly feels far away from the other Losers, and now he’s unsure how he came to be where he is, as if the tunnels moved around him, rather than he moving through them. 

The space is so dark, his flashlight is of little help, but he searches anyway.

He's sure Richie's voice came from this direction.

“Richie?” he calls, shaking with nerves so badly the light is wiggling against the walls and floor, but trying hard to gather his courage for Richie.

Every fibre of his being is telling him to run away, and _fast_ , that something truly cursed, and evil has made this ground sick, that he’s standing in the heart of a cancer on the Earth. Something in his spirit is warning him that he is treading unholy territory, and this attempt, while virtuous, is foolhardy; he is inviting death.

His gut churns, his hands twitch, he doesn’t want to be here, he wants to go home and pray for Richie, he wants to go tell an adult that he knows where Richie is, that they need help getting him, and if they're too late, it's not Stan's fault, it's no one's fault, it's not - he shuts his eyes, and quietly chants to himself, “he’d do it for you. He’d do it for you. He’d do it for you.”

He can see Richie's face in his mind's eye; his goofy, crooked smile, his owlish eyes magnified behind his ridiculous glasses - the way he applauded Stan at his Bar Mitzvah, and the way he hugged Stan close when he found the newly made man outside the temple, crying. 

_"Stan the Man - the name finally works for real," Richie had joked, petting his back with long, soothing strokes, talking with a casualness that belied the situation, "I'm proud of you."_

_"Fuck you, Richie."_

_"No, really," Richie insisted, tucking his head on top of Stan's, "I don't understand Hebrew, but it sounded like you kicked the shit outta that Torah reading, but even if it was all totally improvised gibberish - which would be, like, super fuckin' funny and cool of you, if you did - which you didn't, I know you didn't, but like, it'd have been really funny if you did, like, the idea that no one in there actually understands Hebrew, and they all just played along, or like, let you get away with making shit up - which you didn't, like, I know - anyway - all that aside, though, I'm proud to be a Loser with you. We're Losers, man. Losers for life."_

_"Yeah?" Stan asked, sniffling._

_"Yeah!" Richie had exclaimed, "Dude, you are the kosher salt to my black pepper, we're ride or die, you're stuck with me forever - you 'n me? We're gonna be just fine. Someday, you're gonna roll outta bed, and realize that everything is alright, and has been for a long time."_

_Stan had moved his head to look up at Richie; he blinked some of his tears away, and Richie had smiled so earnestly at him, "you're a good, honest man, Stanley. It's all gonna be okay."_

"He would," Stan reaffirms to himself, "He'd do it for you."

Stan’s eyes snap open as he hears shuffling again, as though something has just circumvented him.

He knows he’s not alone, he wishes he could tell if it’s dangerous or not, whoever is with him - or maybe it’s an oversized rat, for all he knows, but he still calls out, louder this time, “Richie?”

He casts light down one tunnel where he sees movement, but only finds Pennywise staring back at him.

Instantly fearful beyond measure, he yelps, fumbles his flashlight, and starts shouting, “guys!? _Guys_!”

* * *

Once Mike is reunited with them all, and settled in the tunnel with them, Eddie is the first to ask, “guys, where’s Stan?” at which point they all hear Stan’s cries for help, and they start calling his name back to him, trying to locate him in the dark labyrinth.

“How could he have gotten so far away from us?” Beverly wonders as they turn a third corner.

“I don’t think he m-meant to get away at all,” Bill answers, “I th-think being down here m-mmmesses with your head.”

* * *

Unable to hear the calls of his name, Stan casts his light around in circles, trying to find the source of the skittering noise on the walls, trying to spot where Pennywise has gotten to, as if that will help him any.

The noise is not unlike what Stan imagines would be the sound of quick-moving spider legs, if it were a spider the size of a dog, but whatever is running in circles around, and above him, he cannot catch in the light.

The rapid tapping noises come to an unexpected halt, and Stan moves his light around more frantically, still looking for whatever it may have been - until his light lands on the Painted Lady’s face, so close to him she is already upon him as he _screams_ for help.

* * *

The Losers pick up their pace, and struggle with a metal door that’s blocking their way to where they think they heard Stan a moment before; with their combined strength, they’re able to push it open. 

Beverly is the first to see the discarded flashlight on the ground, her eyes already well adjusted to the dark. She picks it up, and the glow hones in directly on the sight of the Painted Lady feeding on Stan’s face.

All of them clamor and shriek as her mouth latches on, even as her face shifts upward to look at them, her gums and teeth outstretched like a goblin shark, her face warped, and strangely two-dimensional. 

Smoothly, as if she’s entirely unbothered by their interruption, she detaches from Stan’s quivering body, leaving weeping puncture wounds around his pale face, and moving gracefully backwards like a retreating mist. 

She then disappears into the shadows of another tunnel, and once she’s out of sight, the group gathers around Stan, sympathy and worry writ across all their faces.

Stan is in shock at first, catatonic other than the convulsing, and he's totally unresponsive until he is touched, at which point he shoots upright, crying, and _wailing_ , particularly in the direction of Eddie, and Bill, “you left me! You took me into Neibolt! You’re not my friends! You made me go into Neibolt! You made me! You're not my friends, you're not my friends!”

His cries are a haunting, jarring sound that ricochettes in Bill’s chest; even as Beverly tries to soothe him with assurances of ‘we’re all here now, Stan, we’re here,’ and Eddie repeats over, and over, ‘I’m so sorry, Stan, please, please forgive me, I didn’t realize you’d left!’ - even as Mike tells him, ‘we got to you as fast as we could, Stan, I swear,’ and Ben sniffles, trying to convince him, ‘Stan, of course we’re your friends, no one meant for you to get hurt, we’re sorry,’ Bill says nothing.

Bill says nothing because his promise is already broken, and they haven’t even reached Richie yet. 

Eddie is apologizing profusely, Beverly keeps trying to pacify him, swearing that he’s safe now, Mike is tearful, and along with Ben looks very pained by Stan’s hysteria, and Bill wants to say something, but he knows it won’t make a difference. In fact, he thinks anymore words from him may make things worse.

Stanley is down in the sewers below Neibolt because Bill promised him they’d be okay, and Stan has never been so evidently far from ‘okay.’ He feels petrified and betrayed in ways Bill will never fully understand, because no one made Bill any empty promises. 

It’s his fault they’re all down here - that Georgie is down here somewhere, that Richie is down here somewhere, that the Losers are being hunted for sport, tortured for fun.

He wants to tell Stan how sorry he is, he wants to tell Stan how much he is loved, he wants to tell Stan that he’s willing to kill and die for him to make this all up to him somehow, but the words are caught in his throat. It wouldn’t be enough. Words could never be enough.

Angsting and worrying over Stan with the rest of them, of course Bill wants to comfort him, but he's suddenly distracted.

The skin on the back of Bill's neck prickling tells him to look up, and to the right, and so he does.

Yellow rain jacket, and weather boots on, and boat in hand, Bill sees Georgie’s silhouette in the odd lights and shadows of a nearby tunnel, and, as if hypnotized, he rises to his feet very quietly, grabs Mike’s bolt gun (which Mike had let go of in favor of checking Stan for wounds other than those on his face), and takes off after the figure.

It's less than half a minute, but Eddie notices Bill’s absence first, and yells out for him, catching some glimpse of him as he runs down his chosen tunnel. 

Attention shifts, and they all begin screaming for Bill, and follow after him; even Stan, who wipes his tears away, and looks to sincerely want to rejoin with Bill safely.

They all acknowledge that the tunnels play mind tricks on them, that Stan got separated from them by an enormous stretch of space that should have been impossible to cross in the time he did. They all realize that as soon as one of them splinters from the group, the danger and misdirection multiplies exponentially.

Beverly and Eddie lead the way through winding corridors, keeping Stan in the middle, so Mike and Ben can bring up the rear, and make him feel a bit more protected; Eddie explains that he's sure they're only a little ways behind Bill, but he also admits that, because of the nature of the tunnels, and what Stan just went through, that he can't be entirely sure of that.

Beverly tells him that she trusts his judgement, that she feels they're going the right way, and that seems to hearten him, so they all trek forward.

* * *

Unaware his friends are looking for him, and half-hoping they’ve learned their worth and left him to fend for himself, Bill reaches the cistern on his own.

He is first deeply distracted with the funnel web of suspended, rotting children, but his eyes quickly find Richie, levitating in midair, maybe ten or twelve feet off the ground, and his hypnotic daze is broken.

Calling Richie’s name, Bill tries to grab one of Richie’s legs, but can’t reach him without a support; even jumping as high as he can, his fingers don’t even brush Richie’s shoe. 

He looks to the hoard of accumulated trophies at the bottom of the web, and finds something he thinks he can stand on - possibly an old school desk - but then he sees Georgie’s yellow raincoat again, and his vision tunnels.

He steps in the direction that Georgie has disappeared into, but he stops short, his hands clenching and unclenching nervously. 

He's chasing a phantom, most probably. It's been almost a year since Georgie went missing. It's probably not really him, but... this is his last hope of finding Georgie. Dead, or alive. His familial instincts are in overdrive, his Older Brother Senses are tingling, telling him to move forward, but Bill knows that means leaving Richie to this uncertain state.

For all Bill knows, Pennywise could be floating Richie to ripen him up, or something - in the time it takes to discover Georgie, and return, Richie could be gone forever.

Bill can torture himself forever with the possibilities of what may happen next, but in truth, the decision is already made.

Eyes gleaming with dismay, and regret, Bill glances back at Richie, and promises he’ll come back for him - another empty promise, as he’s unsure he’ll survive long enough to return for Richie, but he says it anyway. He says it like he's said all his lies, all his hollow hopes, all his unfounded predictions; he says it like it's the truth.

Shamefully, he turns his head away from Richie, and pursues Georgie again.


	5. Heart Is Burning

The rest of Losers are still delayed behind Bill, unsure of what turns he made, and where, but still convinced they'll find their way to him.

In the darkness, Eddie trips over a protrusion in the ground, and falls into grey water on hands, and knees, bruising his calves on the landing, and seething. 

Beverly tries to help him up, reminding him that he’s going to ruin his cast, and that the water is unsanitary, but he laments his flashlight being lost in it, insisting he has to find it, that it must have fallen right in front of him, in the water. 

Mostly unbothered by the dangerous microbes he’s wading in (as he's got bigger problems currently), Eddie gropes in the muck for his lost torch, but screams in terror as decapitated, decomposed, and partially consumed heads begin popping up in the water around them all. 

They all yowl and rush to get away, slowing down only to help gather Eddie up out of the water, and run. No one says it, but they're all visibly disappointed when they don't hear Bill shout back for them, all of them wondering if they're much too far from him with no hope of reaching him, or if he's somehow compromised, or lost to them.

Bill doesn’t hear those screams from the other side of the corpse nest, though, otherwise he would answer them. At the time they're shouting, and to them, their voices are bouncing, and echoing at increasingly high volumes, Bill doesn’t even really know if his friends are still down there with him. 

As he circles the hoard, and web of static children to face Georgie, now out of sight from where he first entered, The Losers find the cistern.

Perhaps the most concerned for Bill's safety, Mike walks in first, ready to call his name again, but he's stopped; light from the last surviving flashlight, now in Eddie’s hands, hits Richie almost immediately, and Bill is momentarily forgotten. 

They all begin to call for Richie as they step into the lair, but as Richie gives no signs of consciousness back to them, or in anyway indicates a response, it dawns upon them all that something very terrible has befallen Richie; that whatever state he is in, he can’t hear them. He may not even know they’re there. 

As if possessed, or hung up by strings, his head is tilted back, his arms dangle at his sides, his body is limp, and all his visible skin, and clothes are dirtied, and bloodied; the state of his bruises, cuts, and filth confirm, at least to Beverly, what she believes must have happened in the arcade. There's white residue on his shoes too, and a little on his shirt, and in his hair; she thinks to herself that if they could find Bowers, and haul him back up to the house, she'd like to push him down the well all over again.

“H-How is he in the air?” Eddie asks, then turns his light onto the hoard; all eyes turn upward, taking in the mountain of remains, and other similarly motionless, hovering children.

“Are those -” Eddie begins, but is cut off by Stan, who finishes for him, “the missing kids… floating…”

Focused on the rescue, Beverly turns away from the nightmarish sight, and suggests to Mike, “just - uhm, help me grab him.”

Agreeable, and helpful as ever, Mike gently hoists her up with ease, holding her around the thighs; she gets a grip on Richie’s jeans, tugging him down, and once Richie is low enough that everyone can reach him, and touch him, they all help to ground him. That's when they see his eyes - they all make gasps, and murmurs of worry, and shock, but no one says anything out loud about it. Not right away, at least.

While he doesn’t take off like a balloon again as soon as his friends' hands stop physically anchoring him, little else changes about his state, which is more than worrisome.

His curly, raven hair has always contrasted with his skin and made him seem pale, but in the dim light, and after what appears to be a lot of physical trauma, he seems even paler than usual. The bruises on his skin seem so dark, the cuts so apparent, and there's this supernatural lightness to him, this type of buoyancy that simply isn't human; he appears to them as a ghost. His pupils and irises are gone, his eyes, framed by his thick, feathery, dark lashes are pearly off-white, wide open, but unseeing, and there's movement in them, like thunderheads moving across a grey sky.

Beverly steps into his space, touches his bruised cheek with a gentle hand, noticing how cold he is, and with her voice full of sorrow, and sisterly love, she asks, “Richie?”

There is no response.

“Richie, we came for you," she tells him, her tone so calming, and light, it's as though she's worried she'll scare him away if she speaks too loudly, "We all did - Bill’s here too. Stan, and Mike, and Ben - and even Eddie is here. Richie… can you hear me?”

No answer comes.

“Is he - is it that he’s asleep?” Stan inquires half-heartedly.

“With his eyes wide open, and all fuckin' turned over!?” Eddie snaps, “This is brain-injury one-oh-one, Stan! He’s obviously hurt!”

Passing his flashlight over to Beverly, Eddie asks her to shine it on Richie for him, nudges her aside, takes her place in front of him, and feels at Richie’s forehead with the back of his hand. With an odd, mostly unreadable expression, Eddie doesn’t report his findings on temperature before lifting Richie’s fringe to look at where blood has congealed - there’s an evident wound on his head, broken skin, and bruising.

Face wrinkling up with a grimace of sympathy, Eddie’s thumb brushes over the injury in an uncharacteristically reverent manner, and then he’s moving his hand to feel at the pulse in Richie’s jugular while checking his wristwatch.

He’s troublingly quiet for a few beats, no one dares to break his focus with so much as scuffing their shoes in the silence, and then he asks Beverly for Richie’s glasses. 

She fumbles hurriedly to lift them from where they’re hanging at the front collar of her dress; Eddie takes the glasses, and holds the uncracked lens under Richie’s nose, but no fog appears.

“He’s not breathing,” Eddie announces grimly, gazing up at Richie with terrible worry.

Solemnly, Mike puts a hand on Richie’s shoulder, and with a wobbly chin, Ben looks away from him, but Stan, Beverly, and Eddie determinedly keep their eyes on Richie.

"Is he dead?" Stan inquires with a worryingly flat affect.

"I don't think so," Eddie replies, still staring into Richie's phantom eyes, "His pulse is really weak, and sporadic, but it's there. It's like he's in a cryosleep, like in _Alien_ , or something."

"What can we do, then?" Ben asks Eddie, "What do we do about someone who's basically in a coma?"

"It's not a coma," Mike states decidedly, "This is some dark magic shit. I bet you anything he's in a dream state, or something. His eyes aren't dull, like -"

"His eyes aren't _human_!" Stan intercepts.

“Guys," Beverly interrupts briskly, staring at Richie's profile, "You know how, uhm… you know how parents kiss cuts and bruises? To make them better? Like, when you’re really little?” she offers.

The group murmurs agreeably, and turning her attention to Eddie, she says, “well... you’re the doctor, Eds. Kiss it better.”

“What!?” Eddie squeaks, eyes rounded out like saucers, face flushed, “He needs an ambulance, a-a fuckin’ M-R-I, Bev, not some imaginary, magical -”

“But that’s what all this is! Right?” Beverly begs, looking around at them all, gesticulating between all of them, “That's what all of this has always been about! It’s about believing. And I - I bet you love Richie a lot, Eddie."

Proud as anyone else in the group, Eddie looks like he wants to turn his nose up at her in disgust for accusing him of loving Richie, but she looks at him sternly, and he keeps his mouth shut.

"You must have snuck out from under your mother’s thumb, or given her Hell to get out of your house like you are, and you marched right into Neibolt, and you walked through grey water, and you - you’ve been so brave for him today. Even if you don't like saying it for some reason, you must love him a lot to do all you've done today…”

Looking humbled, and maybe a little embarrassed, Eddie scratches near his cast, and replies, “I guess.”

Smiling encouragingly, Beverly adds him, “I’d bet anything in the world you love Richie enough that a kiss from you would fix it.”

When she is met with more hesitation from Eddie, she looks around at the others, and initiates, “right, guys?”

Predictably, they all nod and murmur in agreement, not willing to risk arguing with Beverly, and at their collectively, half-hearted mutterings, Eddie looks close to giving up on the idea altogether, but then Mike encourages the others to be more sincere by agreeing, “if anyone can fix him up, it’s Doctor K. I believe it.”

Surprised for a beat, Eddie then rolls his eyes, but before he can try to dissuade Mike, Ben pipes up, and offers, “yeah, Eddie. Maybe it won't be magical like parents' kisses, but it'll be just - different, you know? It’ll be like, uh - like Prince Charming.”

“God knows Richie’s not the charming one between the two of them,” Stan jokes drily, earning a few nervous laughs from the rest.

They’re all looking to Eddie now, hopes evidently pinned on him; he gauges all of their expressions, faces every one of them in the semi-circle they've made around Richie, then he returns his eyes to Beverly.

“... you really think it will work?”

“I’m sure of it,” Beverly guarantees, though she's not, “You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I know he loves you most of all,” Beverly tells him, smiling sweetly, “Out of everyone in the entire world. I’d bet my life on it, Eddie. I really would.”

“That much is true,” Stan agrees, making Eddie swivel his head to stare wide-eyed at him, “He’s miserable when you’re not around, and he's physically incapable of shutting up when you're around. Like, he always wants to make you laugh. You, in particular.”

“I haven’t known you two long,” Ben acknowledges, pulling Eddie's attention, “But when we went into Neibolt the first time? I’d never seen anyone more protective of another person - ever.”

“That’s right,” Mike tacks on, smiling when Eddie turns to him with red cheeks, “He tried to fix your arm, and he screamed at Bill when your mom drove away with you. I mean, he was upset about Ben getting hurt too, but, man, he was _pissed_ Bill pulled you into Neibolt.”

“He stayed with you on the floor when Pennywise was coming for you,” Beverly reminds Eddie, re-focusing him yet again, “He wasn’t gonna move, Eddie, not even for the Devil. He’d do anything for you, and I know he's sort of an idiot about feelings, but I guess that's why you all get along so well."

"Hey, now, I take offense to that," Mike tells her with a sly smile.

"Very hurtful, Beverly," Ben jokes, while at the same time Stan utters quietly, "that's fair."

"You all... you all really think all that?" Eddie asks uncertainly, "Like, that Richie loves me enough that he'd... that he'd want a kiss from me?"

"It's not something someone can say in Derry," Stan answers, stepping closer to Eddie, and looking long into his eyes, "I'm not about to make assumptions about Richie, but I've known him our whole lives, and I like to think I know him well. If I do know him even a fraction the way I think I do, well... if he could - say it in Derry, that is - I bet he would've asked you for one a long time ago."

Eddie goes ruddy red from his cheeks into his hairline, and concluding for them all, Beverly assures him, "if anyone can kiss it better, Eddie, it’s you.”

After everyone else confirms that they believe it too, that none of them are mocking him, Eddie steels himself, hands Richie’s glasses back over to Beverly, whose hand is at the ready to take them, and faces Richie, toe-to-toe.

“Wake up, Richie,” he commands softly, getting up on his toes so his nose brushes Richie’s cheek; he glances up at the injury on Richie's forehead again, and with his nose and lips so close to Richie's, he feels his heart rate tick up, "come on, Richie, this is embarrassing..."

When, predictably, no response comes, Eddie grumbles under his breath, "fine. Fine, I'll kiss it better, okay? And it'll be like _Sleeping Beauty_ , and you'll go back to normal, okay, Richie? If everyone else thinks I... that I could make you better this way, then maybe you'd believe it too."

Curling his fingers tightly into Richie's shirt, near his shoulders, Eddie takes a deep breath, bumps the sides of their noses together, and looks up into Richie's blind eyes from under his lashes. His fists keep tightening, and further wrinkling Richie's shirt. His face is so hot, and he knows he's probably red all over, which is only making him more self-conscious; "come back, Richie," he whispers, and then he leans in, shutting his eyes, and pressing Richie's bottom lip between both his own. 

It’s his first kiss, and it will be Richie’s now, forever. 

That's not all too bad a thing, Eddie supposes; Richie's lips are full, and velvety, though he's cold, and still as a statue. Richie is good to him, though - always has been. Not in the most traditional sense, because Richie is a jackass by nature, but he's immensely loyal, and protective, and steadfast, and true. He's honest, and brave, and when things are bad, and scary, all he ever wants to do is help make the bad/scary go away. 

And, Eddie guesses, he's handsome, in a weird sorta way. He'd never tell anyone that, but he likes the way Richie looks - it's like he's a busy painting, or something. He's got all this color, and definition, spindly limbs, weird clothes, and there's a musical quality to his voice, and something really nice about his hands. His laugh is so contagious, and he's got beauty marks all along his back, and near his neck, and when he smiles for real, it glitters in his eyes, and his whole face lights up with a glow Eddie's never seen in anyone else. Like the Sun rises with him, like he's so warm, and good inside that he might turn into a real star someday.

Kissing Richie isn't such a sacrifice to make, after all, (not that Eddie plans to tell anyone that either), but after a few seconds, he feels nothing stir under his touch.

He's actually deeply disappointed.

Thinking this hypothesis has failed, Eddie is about to pull away when he feels and hears a sharp intake of breath against his face, and then Richie’s skin is warm again, his mouth is actually _hot_ against Eddie's, he head tilts, and he's deepening the kiss, he's arching in toward Eddie like a magnet, and there are (really nice) broad hands on Eddie’s hips, pulling him in closer. 

As Richie kisses him back, tender, and dreamlike, but full of intention, and commitment, Eddie can feel Richie's heart pounding against the spot Eddie's wrist is settled on his chest. It's suddenly so natural to be kissing Richie, like they've done this before, like they've done this a million times, and Eddie feels a little like melting. He feels comfortable, and safe there, held and kissed by Richie - Richie, who's brave, and true, and loyal, and good to him.

Just as his knuckles unlock over Richie's shirt, relaxing into him, Eddie thinks of the Kissing Bridge.

He doesn't mean to, but the memory of it just pops up on the movie screen inside his mind, and he sees the carving he passes all the time, the one that’s always stuck out to him, the one that always makes him feel like he's being watched, makes his ears burn, and his heart thud.

When they break apart, their lips stick, and linger a little, like their brains have decided the kiss is over, but their bodies disagree.

Eddie's heart has never beat so fast in his whole life, he thinks; his face is unbearably warm, and it's hard to keep eye contact with Richie, but he does it. He can't tell if either of them are embarrassed or not - it all feels nearly too good, or too simple to be true.

"Is this real?" Richie rasps, sounding truly uncertain.

"Yeah," Eddie answers on a breath, "I think so, anyway."

"Oh," Richie lets slip, his hands on Eddie's hips feeling uncertain now of their welcome.

Eddie gazes at Richie with no small degree of awe, his eyes flickering back and forth between Richie's.

“You… you’re the one that carved the ‘R,’ plus ‘E,’ into the Kissing Bridge… aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I never thought it would actually count,” Richie murmurs back.

Heart full to bursting, Eddie grins at him, so glad to hear his voice, and see his owl eyes twinkle with life again - the rest of The Losers seem to feel the same, because soon enough, there's a collective sigh of relief, and they’re both engulfed by smelly hugs, and tearful reminders of everyone’s love for them both.

"I can't believe you guys found me," Richie tells them, his face nuzzling Stan's shoulder, then his forehead pressing against Eddie's, his hands moving up to grasp at Mike's big arms around him, and hold Beverly's hands, and hug Ben to his side, all in turns, "I - I thought -"

"Losers stick together," Mike reminds him, "Always."

Using Eddie’s flashlight, Beverly turns around at that remembrance, and asks, “where’s Bill, though?”

Like a ripple, they all move together to the other side of the hoard, thinking he can’t be far from them - they were following him, after all.

And only a yard or so away, Bill knows they’ll arrive soon - he knows he heard Eddie’s voice not long ago, and it sounded nearby.

He’s fixated, and cannot be moved, though.

“Georgie,” Bill states, as the boy emerges from the shadows...


	6. Where The Water Runs

“Georgie,” Bill states, as the boy emerges from the shadows.

He’s not as he’s appeared before; he’s dirty, bruised, he’s not in his raincoat anymore, and he’s missing an arm. 

Bill's eyes burn at just the sight of him this way - there's something honest, and real about this portrayal. He doesn't want to think of Georgie having had his arm taken off, of the pain, and screaming, and bleeding that must have gone on. He doesn't want to think of how frightened Georgie must have been, how hurt he was - but there it is, in front of him. And somehow, Bill knows that part is real. 

Part of him already knew that Georgie had suffered, but he never thought he'd have to really see it.

“What took you so long?”

That question stings Bill; “I was looking for you this whole time," he tells Georgie helplessly, stepping closer to him.

“I couldn’t find my way out of here," Georgie explains, "He said I could have my boat back, Billy.”

That's the truth, Bill knows. That's a glimpse of the truth again, he doesn't know how he knows it's the truth, but he knows it, he can feel it. It's so like Georgie, he wouldn't have wanted to lose the boat, he was polite to strangers, and he was much too trusting. Much too innocent, and unassuming. Much too young.

His voice cracks with how his throat is tightening up around hot, unshed tears, “w-was she fast?”

“I couldn’t keep up with it," Georgie admits.

“She, Georgie," Bill reminds him, "You call b-boats ‘she.’”

Uninterested in the gendering of inanimate things, and laser-focused on Bill, Georgie gives him big, doe eyes, he was once well known to give when feeling unwell, and he pleads, “take me home, Billy.”

All of Bill's resolve is being tested on a cliff's edge, and so of course that's when The Losers arrive; they are there as pillars for him to find support on just as they are guardians to reinforce his greater moral compass. He resents their watchfulness just as much as he adores their unconditional, unified strength.

He senses them gathering behind him, and he knows by the sounds of gasps, and varied 'Jesus fucking Christ,''s and 'oh, God,''s, that they're all seeing Georgie too. Bill isn't just talking to empty space, or seeing ghosts in his house, and though it's a bittersweet feeling, Bill is glad they see Georgie now.

He knows that's cruel - no one should have to see a child so young in this state, knowing what happened to him, knowing there's no saving him, but his mourning, and his loss finally feel witnessed, and he feels vindicated, in a way.

He told them he wanted to find Georgie, he wanted to know what happened to his baby brother, and he told them that he'd find Georgie, he'd get the truth, and here Georgie is, standing in front of them all, mutilated, and lost.

No one ever accused Bill of being crazy when It took the form of Georgie in his house, and Stan, Eddie, and Richie still followed him to the Barrens in search of what they three were positive would be decomposing remains; a task that, surely, no friend, no matter how close, wants to be asked to help with, much less follow through on. They stood by him loyally, though, and no one said he'd lost touch, or that he wasn't in his right mind, and until Neibolt, no one even argued with him when he insisted that Georgie could still be alive.

That didn't stop him from _feeling_ crazy, though.

All this time, he's been carrying a grief they know nothing of, a grief they can't understand; Stan, Richie, Eddie, Beverly, Ben, and Mike are all single children. Mike lost his parents, Eddie and Ben lost their fathers, Beverly lost her mother, but none of them know what it is to be an older sibling, and lose a brother. None of them know what it is to touch their mother's belly, and be charged with the protection of the tiny creature still growing in there; none of them know what it is to peek over the new crib, and let the baby grip their finger, knowing any terrible villain could steal away into that nursery some dark, stormy night, and he'd be defenseless but for his little grip. None of them know the bond of blood brothers, none of them know a life-long friend that relies on them for guidance, and advice, kindness, safety, and a hand to hold before crossing the street, or a few inches of height to help reach the top shelf.

None of them will ever know what it feels like to say, 'I was once someone's big brother.'

And none of them could ever know what it was to be Georgie's big brother. 

“I wanna go home," Georgie whines, "I miss you, I wanna be with mom and dad.”

Breath and hands shaking, Bill affirms, “I want more than _anything_ for you to be home - mom, and dad, and I miss you so much.”

“I love you, Billy.”

_I should die here_ , Bill thinks to himself, his eyes filling with tears, _I should let everyone else leave, and I should stay here with Georgie_. 

But, that wouldn't save anyone.

Bill dying in this filth, and burying himself with Georgie just for his memory to waste away into nothingness won't save any other kids. It won't solve the problem, it won't kill the monster. If Bill lies down now, if he stops here, and surrenders to the despair, it means Georgie was taken away, and absolutely nothing changed. It means that Georgie was stolen from him, and just like the rest of Derry, all Bill will have done, is go to sleep. 

That can't be Georgie's story, Bill decides, stepping closer to the boy - he won't let that be the legacy. 

When recounting Georgie, Bill will tell the world he didn't forgive, and he didn't forget; he refused sleep, he denied comfort, he would not rest, and could not stop, not until the monster that took his brother from him, his charge, was dirt at the bottom of Bill's shoes. When Bill recounts Georgie, he'll say that all the world wept for the loss of him, that for anyone else, the world may have kept turning, time may have marched on as assuredly as it always has, but not for him. 

For Georgie, the bloodshed will end - that's what Bill will say. That, for Georgie, he hunted the Devil, and put his head on a spike; he'll have screamed in the face of God for allowing this to befall Georgie, he'll have shifted the Earth, searching for him, and then done what God would not. 

He will rend justice from the unwilling hands of the universe, he will force the set bones of fate to bend and break for him, and he'll write a story one day that ends with the blood of the enemy mixing with water and soil, disappearing into nothing, fading away into a memory of a bad nightmare he had one summer evening. He'll write a story about a boy who was not forgotten, who was missed, who was avenged, and then, Bill hopes, he'll write that the boy rested peacefully, still loved, even in absence.

“I love you too," Bill assures him, securing the bolt in the gun, and pointing it at Georgie's forehead; his baby-face crumples with fear, and sadness, and even confusion, but Bill does not buckle - this story is too important to fail now, at the end, "...but you’re not Georgie.”

With as deep a breath as Bill's body allows for, locked up with nerves as it is, he pulls the trigger on an exhale, and releases the bolt into Georgie's head.

When the body hits the ground, it doesn't immediately change shape, or form, and for a split second, Bill is petrified that he may have actually just murdered his brother, but then Georgie's body shrieks with more than one set of vocal cords, making all The Losers twitch away. The body convulses violently, jumps with an arching back, and then stills long enough for the limbs to splay out, then elongate with troubling pops, and springing noises. The bones and flesh contort, and the remains transform before them into Pennywise.

As if being raised with strings pulling It up and forward, Pennywise rolls onto It's heels, and rearranges It's torso, and head, so that all of It is facing the correct direction.

“KILL IT, BILL!"

"BILL, KILL IT! KILL IT!"

“KILL IT, KILL IT”

Bill doesn't know who's screaming at him, and who's not, and he doesn't really care - it doesn't matter. He positions the bolt gun again at It's head, and readies himself to fire.

"KILL IT!"

"BILL, KILL IT!"

“It’s not loaded…” Mike tries, but everything is so surreal, he can't even tell if he's audible anymore, he doesn't think anyone has heard him.

"KILL IT, KILL IT, KILL IT!"

"KILL IT, BILL!"

Louder, and more panicked now that he's realizing how close Bill is to It, Mike tries again to warn him, “hey, it’s not loaded!”

He says it just as Bill shoots anyway, and he's rightfully befuddled when it works. No bolt actually comes out, but, Mike supposes, that quite like Eddie's magic kiss, if enough of them believe something will work, then it will. Pennywise is wounded, and Mike may have been the only one of them that thought the attempt could fail - maybe if he'd been less aware, or less frightened, it would have been lethal.

Everything happens quite rapidly after that; Pennywise bellows in pain, or rage, charges at Bill, toppling him over onto the ground, and Bill staves him off with the barrel of the bolt gun, which also shouldn't work, but it does. It's like blocking the jaws of a great white shark with just a tree branch, but it works - it works because Bill won't let himself believe it won't. 

In an effort to get Pennywise off Bill, Beverly grabs one of the fence posts that Bill took from the front yard upon their arrival, and whacks Pennywise with it, drawing It’s attention to her.

“Beverly, no!” Eddie screams, seeing It advance on her - her round, terrified eyes shock Mike into motion.

“Mike!” Bill yells, as Mike comes at Pennywise with his own post, distracting It from Beverly, and, for his effort, is thrown bodily against a far wall.

Enraged, Bill gets a handle on rebar he had in his backpack, swings himself onto It’s back, and forces the metal between It’s many rows of teeth.

As Beverly holds onto Mike, and they watch It attempt to dislodge Bill, they witness Richie run, and jump, climbing onto Bill, and doubling his efforts. 

Inspired by Richie's recklessness, Ben throws himself into the fray, bites into one of It’s arms, holding it with both hands, weighing It down, and further aggravating It. 

Stan goes to do something similar, to tug on one of It’s arms, but is caught by the neck in a furious grip, and thrown to the ground with enough force that he rolls.

Truly incensed now, Pennywise shakes Ben off him, reaches backward, grabbing Richie by the shirt collar, and slamming him down on his back - then flipping Bill onto the floor, and taking hold of him before he can scramble away.

“Bill!” Eddie screams.

The Losers all move backwards, and look in horror as Pennywise keeps hold of Bill, petting him, but keeping him in a secure headlock.

“No!” Beverly yells, “Let him go!”

“ _No_ ,” Pennywise answers, It's eyes shining with something truly deranged, “I’ll take him. I’ll take _all of you_ , and I’ll _feast_ on your _flesh_ , as I _feed_ on your _fear_... _oooorrrrr_!" It sings, "... you’ll just leave us be."

It gropes at Bill's hair, pushing it back like he's a pet, and covering his mouth with a dirty, gloved hand, "I’ll take him, only him," It offers, "and I’ll have my long rest - and you will all live to grow, and thrive, and live _haaappppy_ lives… until old age takes you back to the weeds…"

It occurs to all The Losers that Pennywise must be remarkably worried, because It's arrangement sounds sincere. 

No one says anything at first, and regarding their silence with intrigue, Pennywise moves It's hand away from Bill's mouth, allowing him to speak.

“Leave," he begs, "I’m the one that dragged you all into this. I’m so sss-sorry.”

“S-s-s-sorry!” Pennywise mocks softly behind, and beside him.

With glassy eyes, Bill shouts at them, “ _go_!”

“Guys, we can’t,” Beverly says hopelessly, as they all seem to consider Pennywise’s deal - she doesn't say it, but her statement sounds more like a question, and the question sounds more like 'guys, we shouldn't... right?'

“S-Sorry,” Richie states with finality, “I told you, Bill. I fucking told you. I don’t wanna die."

Lips pursing, chin wobbling, Bill doesn't argue; Pennywise grins widely, as Richie paces, and The Losers defer to his choice.

"It’s _your_ fault," Richie reminds him, as if he needs any reminding, "You made me walk through shitty water, you brought me to a crackhead house, you punched me in the face, you were so busy being a huge bag of dicks you left me alone to get the shit kicked out of me by Bowers, then fuckin' kidnapped by Buffalo Bill here, and now..."

With a resigned sigh, Richie nonchalantly picks up a steel baseball bat from the hoard, turns it over in his hands, and finishes, "I’m gonna have to kill this fuckin’ clown."

Everyone is so dumbfounded for a split second that Richie gets the upper hand, has the element of surprise, and screams out, " _welcome to the Loser’s Club, asshole_!” as he swings the bat against It’s head, shocking It into dropping Its hold on Bill, immediately followed by Mike striking It with a metal rod.

The metal rod might have done more damage, but the strike is stopped by multiple, charred hands crawling out of It’s mouth, gripping onto the rod just as it makes contact.

The hands are reaching for Mike, coming for him - back on his feet, ready to fight, Bill goes to defend him, but Stan beats him to it, grabbing a metal post from the ground, and plowing it through the flesh of the arms, severing them, and in rapid succession, Richie lands another blow to Pennywise’s back.

As if glitching, It’s face changes from an opening through which burned, ashy hands are grasping, into the Painted Lady, freezing Stan with panic. Thinking It has the upperhand, It comes for Stan, but Stan is able to summon enough courage to beat It back.

Stumbling, It changes form again, twisting toward Mike with spiked, armored, arachnid-like legs sprouting from It’s sleeves; Mike has to duck and roll as the pointed claws chase him across the ground, trying to pierce him.

With a war cry, Ben picks up discarded rebar, and impales Pennywise through the middle, from behind; It’s arms turn to shifting, black whisps, as It spits out blood from It’s mouth, and writhes uncontrollably. 

Eddie cries out, “kill it!”

At Eddie’s plea, Ben reaches forward, through the hole he’s created in It’s middle - he’s not sure what he’s doing, he’s just following his instincts, he might have disemboweled the monster, but then Pennywise’s head turns around like an owl, and he transforms into a mummy. Mummies are an unshared fear of Ben's, but he supposes they all know it now.

The wrappings of the mummy come undone, clinging onto Ben’s head, and pulling him closer to the rotting skeleton beneath. As he screams, and struggles, Bill pulls up metal chains he finds near the hoard, and disconnects the wraps from Ben with them, and even as It backs away, Bill moves after It, beating It with the chains furiously.

Richie swings at It’s back again, and The Losers circle around as It falls to It’s knees; Bill beats It again with the chains, making It glitch again - It changes into Eddie’s leper. Just as Eddie looks up in horror at It from his crouched position, the leper opens its mouth, and projectile vomits black, rancid bile into Eddie’s face, thick as tar.

The Losers watch cautiously, perhaps expecting Eddie to faint, or possibly, spontaneously combust, but he surprises them all by rising, and shrieking, “ _I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU_!” at the top of his lungs, and standing so that he can properly kick It in the face with all the strength in his body.

It rolls backward, It's visibly struggling; The Losers press in further, weapons raised - It takes the form of Beverly’s father, leering at her; “hey, Bevvie…” It greets, worrying The Losers that It will have time enough to heal by preying on Beverly's trauma, but instead, It only manages to further incite Beverly’s rage - “are you still my little gir -?”

Before It can finish the question, Beverly plunges a fence post into It’s mouth, pressing it down into Pennywise’s flesh; her father’s face morphs back into the clown, quickly turning to stone, and then back to a humanoid again. 

Biting down on the post, and spitting out the half still protruding from It’s mouth, Pennywise actually staggers backwards, choking, falling, and crawling backwards; even so, The Losers ready their stances, showing It they are all still very much willing to keep beating it into a pulp. 

The Losers follow It, closing in, united, believing themselves capable of destroying It, and they watch carefully as Pennywise gasps for air, It’s back against an opening in the floor of the cistern.

Bill dares to step closest as It shakes, laughs, and simultaneously cries, “that’s why you didn’t kill Richie,” Bill surmises, “cause h-hhhhe wasn’t afraid… and we aren’t either. N-Not anymore. Now, you’re the one who’s afraid. Because you’re gonna starve.”

It falls back into whatever drainage pipe It has been leaning against, and whispers, “he bangs his fists against the posts, and still insists he sees the ghosts. He bangs his fists against the posts…”

Wordlessly, Stan hands Bill rebar, which Bill takes, holds up to strike down with, but he hesitates when Pennywise slips down the dark passage even further. 

With only It’s arms, to It’s shoulders, and head visible now, It repeats, “he bangs his fists against the p-p-p-p-posts…”

Thinking It's still mocking him, Bill moves the metal downward, but without ever making contact with the rebar, It’s head suffers some sort of caving. The skull, if it can be called that, shatters, breaks apart like burnt parchment, and floats away.

It doesn’t seem to be talking to any one of them in particular when It mumbles curiously, “... fear…” and then loses It's grip, and slips away into blackness.

It was undeniably courageous, and markedly loyal what Richie did for Bill, and for all The Losers by grabbing that bat, and being so ruthless - even though Bill left Richie behind to chase after Georgie. Even though Bill forced Richie to walk through sewers, and into Neibolt, and punched him in the face...

Shaken, but still moved, Bill turns to Richie, and, in way of apology, pulls him into a warm embrace, gripping with trembling fingers, and he’s so deeply relieved that Richie hugs him back. 

Georgie was Bill’s little brother by birth, and he loved Georgie, he will always love Georgie, he’ll always miss Georgie, but in his grieving, he nearly lost one of his chosen brothers; Richie. 

He nearly lost Richie, one of his life-long friends, one of the few people Bill has met that will be loud, and proud, and stand up for what’s right, even when it’s not popular.Even if it's dangerous, even if it's difficult, even if it makes him different - makes him a Loser.

It pains him to imagine a world where he failed Richie, where he didn’t get to Neibolt fast enough, or became so consumed with Georgie, and regret, and fear, that he’d not saved Richie, and that their last interaction would have been so terrible, and angry, and undeserved.

“I’m s-so sorry, Richie,” Bill begins, chocked up, “For everything. I n-nnnever should have - I’m -”

“I know. I’m sorry too, Bill,” Richie tells him, discreetly sniffling against Bill's neck.

“Guys,” Eddie voices, directing their attention skyward, “Guys, the kids are floating down…”

Richie pulls away from Bill, smiling at him, and they turn to watch the slow descent of missing classmates, and neighbors. The sight marks the end of this terrible trial, and all of them are visibly loosening up again when Bill spots a yellow raincoat near the foot of the hoard.

He walks toward it, crouches, pulls it out, checks its tag, sees Georgie’s name written in black marker, and feels Richie’s arms wrap around him first as he begins to cry.

Beverly crowds in next, then Mike, Eddie, Stan, and Ben, and they mourn with Bill in companionable silence as weeps.


	7. A Long Way Down

As soon as they leave the sewers, they begin to forget what happened to them all, only vague remembrances of memories once had, as though waking from a dream that the more they all try to remember it, the further the thinning tendrils of it slip away.

Walking their bikes back into town as the Sun follows them, Bill keeps particularly close to Richie, and Eddie does too - all of them recall having gone in the sewers at all for the sake of saving him, but finer details are blurring around the edges. They all keep to the front and back of him, though, instinctively buffering him from the world, keeping him surrounded.

Catching a glimpse of himself reflected in a store front, Eddie grimaces stops, and grimly announces, "my mom's gonna kill me."

This prompts them all to stop walking, and gauge their appearances in their reflections, none of which are particularly heartening.

"To be fair, she was probably going to kill you for running off anyway," Stan offers, as though that's meant to comfort him, "I mean, you've been gone from sunset, to sunrise. You'll probably show up to a full investigative team stripping the block, looking for you."

Horrified at the image that conjures, Eddie gapes at Stan, and only grows paler when Richie finally pipes up.

"Has it been twenty-four hours?" Richie asks, looking at Eddie, "Dude, if it's been twenty-four hours, your face is definitely on a milk carton by now. And you smell like shit."

"Fuck off, Richie," Eddie complains, scowling at him, "Like you smell like lilac and daffodil right now? You've been in the sewers even longer than us."

"Yeah, but I'm not covered in demon puke, though I can't say it's _completely_ unlike being covered in the familiar aroma of your mom's pu -"

"Shut the fuck up, Richie!" Eddie rushes to shriek, gesticulating sharply, "You're such an asshole! Don't fuckin' say it! Stop saying shit! I regret coming to get you!"

"No, you don't," Richie teases, leaning over to pinch Eddie's cheek, "You'd do it again, you big sweetie."

Smacking Richie's hand away, Eddie tells him flatly, "no, I regret it. I should've let you get eaten."

"You can't _hit_ me! I'm wounded!" Richie argues, gesturing at the gash on his head.

"Your head was fucked beforehand, anyway," Eddie remarks.

"You wanna talk about what was fucked? Cause, Eds, I would love to talk about how I fucked yo -"

Smiling at the back of his head, Stan encourages Eddie, "hit him again."

A grin breaking out on Eddie's face, he smacks Richie's arm again, harder, and louder than before. Clearly offended, Richie smacks Eddie back, which Eddie claims is unfair because Eddie saved his life, so smacks him twice for having smacked him at all, and with that logic, the interaction quickly devolves into them furiously slapping at each other with no actual intention of hurting one another; just a noisy flurry of pale, dirty limbs accompanied by a lot of 'you're such a dick head,' and 'no, _you're_ a dick head!' and 'I'm rubber, you're glue...'

"Don't you two _ever_ get tired?" Beverly wonders, watching them fondly.

"Signs point to 'no,'" Ben jokes, commiserating with her, though he's smiling lovingly at the two boys.

"We should get a muzzle for Richie," Stan casually suggests; Richie is momentarily distracted enough at the mention of his name to reply "fuck you, Stan," but Eddie takes the opening to flick the tip of Richie's nose, reigniting his desire for vengeance. 

"I bet I could find one on the farm that fits him," Mike tells Stan conversationally, "though, it wouldn't be designed to be on a human."

"What makes you think Richie is a human?" Stan asks, at the same time that Bill assures, "we'll m-make it work."

"Okay, but we'll need something for Eddie's hands, then," Beverly rejoins, "Fair is fair - they're both troublemakers." 

"Hey!" Eddie shouts defensively, squealing when Richie gives him a wet-willy for turning his head.

"It's true," Stan laments, staring at the two as they narrowly avoid, or fall victim to one another's purple-nurples, and noogies, "Richie needs to be silenced at some point, God willing, and Eddie needs restraints for the good of society. They're both my very good friends, but they're possessed by the Devil's mischief, and they simply can't be trusted."

"He started it!"

"He started it!"

The Losers laugh, and while they all seem content to watch Richie, and Eddie improvise their own, curse-laden episode of _Loony Tunes_ , declaring who needs restraining and/or silencing, Bill reminds them, "c-come on. We gotta get B-B-Bev home."

"Yeah," Beverly sighs, worry creasing her brow, "If you guys think Eddie's gonna be in trouble, you've got no idea what's down the pipe for me."

Remembering themselves, The Losers keep walking; Eddie and Richie calm down marginally, though they keep sneaking pinches, and flicks to one another whenever the other is looking away, to the bemusement of everyone walking behind them.

The gladness comes to a violent, abrupt end when they arrive at Beverly's home.

Her father is waiting for her, furious beyond reason, firing accusations before she's even made it to the front porch; his face goes beet-red with rage, he slurs uncomely accusations at her, he grabs onto her arm much too hard to force her indoors, and Ben, Bill, and Mike snap quickly into action, reacting before thinking. 

In quick succession, Bill, Ben, Mike, and then Richie wind up on the grass, and gravel, sporting new bruises, and cuts, while Beverly screams at her father to leave them alone; the hollering, and scuffling outside alerts, and wakes the neighbors. Children watch in anticipatory anxiety, women gasp in shock, and grown men start in towards Beverly's father, telling him he needs to let go of his daughter, that she's clearly learned her lesson, she's visibly frightened, and to release her.

When he shames her for her appearance, and alludes to what the children might have all been up to together, one of the women nearby tells him that they all seem hurt rather than suspicious, and with one look in Richie's direction, she offers to call for an ambulance. The sympathy for The Losers only further agitates Beverly's father.

The confrontation escalates rapidly as the men of the block realize that he's clearly already put his hands on the injured boys splayed on the ground (and no one is sure to what extent those visible injuries have been inflicted by him), and Beverly's pleas for help don't work in his favor either.

At some point in the midst of screams and struggles, Beverly tries to escape him, and he hauls her back by her dress collar, struggles with her until she's on the ground, and that's when three neighboring men intervene. It's even less dignified than a bar fight, neighbors piling in, pulling him off her, and Beverly scurries backward, holds tightly onto Bill, shaking, as it takes five grown men to subdue her father, and quite a long time for police to arrive.

As it turns out, the unit dispatched to the scene is only very barely available at all, as just before someone called about the Marsh's, Bowers was being arrested at his home for the apparent murder of his father.

Richie, Stan, and Beverly are separated from the group, and interviewed privately about what occurred, looking the most seriously injured.

Beverly shamefully admits that her father's behavior this morning is not all that unusual, and the young officer getting her statement looks to her with profound sympathy when he asks if she knows how to contact her next closest relatives. To Stan, and Richie, it feels like the beginning of the end - they look to each other, and somehow both know that soon, Beverly will be gone from Derry.

When Richie explains that his personal injuries were more the result of Bowers attacking him at the arcade than being manhandled by Mr. Marsh, the officer nods knowingly, and tells him 'not to worry,' how 'that boy will be wrapped up in a padded room by week's end, and likely for the rest of his life.'

Stan weakly latches on to Richie's arcade story, tells the officer he doesn't remember how he received the wounds, that he may have blacked out, or something, and the officer believes him. There's even a muttered statement likening the marks around Stan's face to that of Bowers' knife, and Stan mentions that earlier in the summer, Bowers had cut Ben as well - it's a good enough cover, and an ambulance arrives to look over them all.

Sonia arrives soon after cuffs are placed on Mr. Marsh, both Mr. and Mrs. Uris show up scandalized and worried at nearly the same time, and Bill's parents are close behind.

By some miracle, Eddie hasn't completely ruined his cast, but the medical attendants help clean it for him as his mother flutters around him, getting in the way, bothering the folks addressing his arm, and the seemingly random bumps, bruises, and cuts. As soon as he's cleared to go, he's whisked away by Sonia, and no one is particularly surprised, but The Losers all have faith they'll see Eddie again soon. He even waves out the car window to them, smiling.

Bill is met with more disdain than concern, which is typical in a world post-Georgie. He does tell them about Beverly's predicament, and suggests that she stay in Georgie's room until her aunt can come get her, or other plans can be made for her later in the day. The argument is so sound, and reasonable, his parents can't find good enough cause to say 'no,' in front of what appears to be half the neighborhood, and so Beverly and Bill leave together, eager to wash up, and hopefully crawl into their respective beds for a few hours. Neither say it, but they're glad they'll have each other to comfort if sleep doesn't come easy.

Stan and Richie are taken to the hospital; they both need sanitization for their lacerations, and lots of stitches. Richie needs to be monitored for a concussion, they find a fracture at the top of his eye-socket, a fracture in his right wrist, and they give him painkillers for the deep muscle bruises he's sporting all over (no one seems willing to ask about the finger-shaped bruises around his neck; he thinks they maybe attribute it to the attack from Bowers). Stan needs treatment for shock, lots of stitches, and winds up with wrapping all around his head, but otherwise he's okay; all either of them report to The Losers about their hospital visit is that Richie's father still somehow manages to be pissed off that Richie needs new glasses.

Mike and Ben see to it that everyone's bikes get home to where they belong, and they recover at home; Mike's grandfather worries over him, considers leaving the farm, and Derry altogether, worried that another assault on Mike could kill him. Mike assures his family that the boy who attacked him is going away, and not to fret, but he doesn't fight their fretting so much that he denies some bandaging, comfort foods, and a few days off his feet. It's a nice reprieve for him, in fact, and even though he doesn't share with his grandfather what really happened, where he really went, and what he really did, his grandfather seems to sense that something is changed in him. Without saying a word, a bond of mutual, hard-earned respect forms between them, and Mike falls asleep on the living room couch beside his grandfather, watching old Westerns, and dreaming of gunslinging.

Ben has a similar evening, blames the state of his clothes and skin on Bowers, and his aunt and mother run him a hot bath, make him a big dinner (outside of his restrictive diet plan that his mother usually enforces, which is how he knows he must look pitiful to them), and they tuck him into bed early. Before he falls asleep, he's able to hear them talking down the hall about what a nightmare the men of Derry are, and how 'that Bowers boy,' had a storm coming for him for a long time now. Ben agrees with them, and falls into a deep sleep while tracing the scars on his stomach.

* * *

**SEPTEMBER**

A meeting of The Losers is called soon after rescuing Richie, and he and Stan's subsequent release from the hospital. Through a series of phone calls, and wellness visits, they all realize that they're gradually forgetting what happened in the sewers; they all remember the big fight, that Bill punched Richie, and that they all split up for a while, but even that is frayed and tattered in their minds.

Richie remembers being attacked in the arcade, but nothing else before coming to, in the cistern. At the mention of Neibolt, Stan throws up, which leads Bill to believe that Stan may have already begun forgetting it altogether.

When Stan struggles to remember how exactly he got the wounds around his face, Bill suggests they all meet up in the Barrens while Beverly is still in town, so they can reinforce their memories of the summer, and of what they can all individually recall.

Ben remembers getting the phone call from Bill, and rushing to Neibolt; he remembers walking through the decrepit house, and he remembers finding Stan being mauled - it's at that point that Mike intercepts, says he's missing a critical memory, and reminds Ben that they all needed lowering into the well, which he only remembers because he can't shake the image of Bowers falling down it after attacking him. 

Bill remembers chasing Georgie, everyone remembers Richie floating, but they remember very little else about how they got out alive.

It's Beverly that best remembers seeing Richie in the Deadlights, remembers him floating in the air, his eyes all white, and blinded, how limp, and still he was - Bill asks Richie if he remembers anything about the Deadlights in particular, and Richie nods.

"I... well, I mean, I think I remember stuff. I dunno, it feels like a trippy dream or something, you know? I wanna say I was out in space, or underwater... or both, maybe? I dunno - there was a turtle, and I think I spoke to it -"

"A turtle?" Ben asks, looking confused.

"Like a cartoony one?" Eddie wonders, "It talked?"

"Yeah, no - it talked, but it wasn't a cartoon."

"How did it talk, then?" Mike asks.

"How the fuck should I know?!" Richie exclaims, throwing his arms up, "It was a turtle in space-ocean! I don't remember his mouth moving, but I remember talking to him!"

"Him?" Beverly specifies, "It was a boy-turtle?"

"Sure, but like, a giant one - and now that I think of it, maybe he never even opened his mouth when he spoke, you know? Maybe it was actually more telepathic, or..." Richie trails off, seeing that The Losers are giving him very strange looks, he redirects, "It made sense at the time. I dunno. Maybe I dreamt that part. I only remember parts of it, I mean... I sort of thought... when the Deadlights first hit, I thought I was dead. That's what I thought, but then... I saw everyone," Richie explains, looking around the circle of faces, "Like, I saw all of us, but we were grown up, you know? Like our parents' ages. We were all there, in the sewers again, but we were older."

"You saw the future?" Beverly inquires.

"Yeah, maybe... and I mean, I know it seems impossible, but you get even foxier," Richie tells her with a grin.

The Losers chuckle warmly, and Beverly shoves his shoulder playfully, "shut up."

"What about me?" Stan asks, "What did I look like?"

Pursing his lips, and looking away in thought, Richie tells him, "still super handsome, no one's got a punim as cute as yours, after all. You looked the same as you do now, but taller, I guess. You're a looker, Stan, but I don't think any of us will ever be as hot as Bev is at any point in our lives, so don't get your hopes up too high."

Sagely, Stan murmurs his agreement with that assessment, and Beverly laughs as all the rest of The Losers confirm that they believe it too, that Beverly is incomparably beautiful, and they cannot dream of being her equals.

"Why would we be down there again, though?" Eddie wonders fearfully.

"Yeah, what w-were we all d-d-ddddoing there?" Bill follows up.

Solemn, and reflective in a troublingly uncharacteristic way, Richie frowns, looks down at where he's been picking at the skin around his thumb, and answers, "I dunno. I know we spoke to each other, but... I only remember how we felt. We were scared shitless. I... I don't think I'll ever forget that part. Even if it was just a dream, or something. I won't forget it, how it felt. I don't think I ever can."

There's several beats of silence, and then Bill stands, swiping up broken glass from the tall weeds; he looks at all of them individually, and then demands, "sw-swear it. Swear i-if It isn't dead, if It ever comes back, we'll come back, too."

One by one, Beverly, Mike, Ben, Richie, Eddie, and Stan all stand up, watching as Bill displays his left hand, and with the sharpest edge of the glass shard, makes an incision in the heart of his palm, which they watch pool with blood.

He first approaches Richie, asks if he truly swears to return to Derry, no matter the circumstances, to protect its residents and the rest of the world from It, if ever they have reason to believe It's come back.

Richie agrees, dutifully answering, "I will," and Bill cuts into his left hand which is offered very willingly; he cringes from the pain, and shakes his hand as though trying to cool it off as Bill moves to do the same thing to Eddie, who answers "I swear, yes," and then looks away as the cut is made.

Richie reaches over to place a grounding hand on Eddie's arm, and when Eddie is willing to open his eyes again, he looks to Richie with a weak smile, silently thanking him for the comfort.

Bill then goes over to Mike, who stops him short, saying, "you already know I swear I will, Bill," and Bill smiles proudly at him, and Mike finds himself disarmed by Bill's unabashed pride in him, though he's brought back into reality, and groans in discomfort as Bill digs the glass into his skin. He finds he likes being the focal point of Bill's attention, he likes having made Bill proud, so he allows the noise to escape his throat, but he doesn't flinch, cringe, or pull away.

Stanley watches Bill very closely when he's approached, and, for a moment, no one is readily sure that Stan will agree to come back with the rest of them. There's something hesitant and doubtful in his eyes, but it's common knowledge among The Losers that one cannot be gazed into by Bill Denbrough and deny him anything thereafter.

There are a few seconds of uncertainty, but then he inevitably nods, which everyone supposes is enough of an answer, because Bill takes his hand, and Stan scrunches his eyes shut, and grits his teeth as his skin is split.

Ben swears his allegiance, and only lets out a short grunt of shock as Bill does a quick incision with his hand, then finally, he goes over to Beverly.

Bill stares into her eyes, and she fearlessly stares back - no words are traded between them; Beverly silently extends her hand, winces slightly at first contact with the glass shard, but other than that, she puts on a brave face, seemingly unaffected.

After looking at her in a transfixed sort of way, similarly to how he looked at Mike, Bill steps away, walking backwards until he's in between Richie and Beverly, and he holds out his right hand.

Without hesitation, Beverly places her left hand in Bill's right, Ben takes Beverly's right hand, then extends his right hand to Stanley, who takes it with his left hand, then takes Mike's left hand with his right.

Mike reaches out, connecting his palm with Eddie's; Eddie cringes again, but still takes Richie's left hand, and finally, Richie takes Bill's hand, closing the circle. 

The sunlight splits over their heads, haloing them, and all of them have a long chance to look at one another, devote each other to memory, before simultaneously letting go.

Soon after, Stan meekly announces, "I gotta go," which they all expect now - after how hurt he was the last time he went out playing with The Losers, his parents are a lot less keen on them. 

He looks at Bill, and states quietly, "I hate you."

Visibly stung, Bill looks on the verge of self-flagellation until Stan smiles at him, indicating sarcasm, and his smile spreads outward, moving onto Ben's face, then Eddie, and Richie, until all of them are laughing, and smiling again.

"Really, though, I gotta go," Stan tells them, "I'll see you later."

"Bye, Stan," Bill says, tempted to ask Stan if things will ever be the same, if they'll really stay friends after all of this, if they'll really see one another later, but it's too much to say, too much to wonder, and so he only says 'goodbye.' 

There's something very permanent about watching Stan walk away, though. Something that grief makes a home inside of, deep in Bill's chest, something sad and cold Bill will soon forget.

Eddie announces his departure next, and they all know Sonia has been following his every move, so it makes sense he'd need to leave sooner too - while the rest will linger, Richie says, "I'll go with you," and tells Bill they'll see each other again soon. 

"You didn't have to go with me, you know," Eddie tells him as they walk through the uncut grass, up toward the road, "My mom will kill you if she spots us together."

"Eh, bigger and scarier things have tried and failed, I ain't scared," Richie replies flippantly, enjoying the giggle Eddie gives in response.

They pull their bikes from the brush where they'd been hidden, and start walking them over the Kissing Bridge, admiring the warm colors painting the late afternoon sky, and, at first, in companionable silence.

Eddie feels a tug on his foot, though, halfway across the bridge, and looks down to realize that his laces have come undone. Thinking he'll make quick work of it, he doesn't immediately alert Richie that he's stopped walking, and Richie gets a little bit ahead of him. 

Once he's double-knotted, and ready to depart, he stands up, but on his way up, he catches sight of something on the post of the bridge rail.

**R + E**

He knows he's seen it before, and he feels inexplicably drawn to it now; it's big, it's loud somehow, and it reminds him of calloused hands, magnets, and surrendering to something warm, and safe.

"Hey, Spaghetti!" Richie shouts from a yard or so away, "What's the hold up?"

"Nothing!" Eddie chimes back, glancing one more time at the initials before picking his pace back up.

"Why, I tell ya, m'boy," Richie starts in some bizarre approximation of an Elderly, Wizened Old Man Voice, mounting his bike, "The sun's set on settin' and settin' early this night, I tell ya! You best hurry on home, or you'll be walkin' through Derry in the night, and no young'in like ya-self should be out in these here streets at night!"

"I can take care of myself," Eddie replies, rolling his eyes, and swinging his leg over onto his bike, trying to catch up with Richie.

"Oh, I don't doubt ya, no, I don't doubt ya one bit, but I'll tell ya, boy, there's monsters walkin' these here streets same as you 'n me, and they'll take care'uh ya just as well, and fast-uh than ya mama will ring that dinna bell!"

"You're such an asshole, Richie," Eddie laughs, biking up close to Richie's right side, "Do you ever shut the fuck up?"

"That was such a good Voice!" Richie complains, "That was like, my best one yet!"

"What the fuck kind of Voice _was_ that even? Also, for the record, _all_ of your Voices suck, and it's -"

"Why would you wound me so, Eddie Spaghetti?!" Richie cries in an operatic, high-pitched/feminine Voice, "Why, in all my matronly years, I've _never_ -" then his voice cracks, taking it down an octave, and making him cough, which leads to him laughing at himself.

Smiling begrudgingly, Eddie looks away, hoping that will quell the burgeoning fondness in his chest, but he instantly looks back again, grinning at Richie's profile, lit from behind by the sun setting beyond him.

"My favorite bit you do is when you play that mute character."

"What mute chara - oh, now you're just being rude, Eds."

They ride into Derry, laughing, smiling, sun-kissed and young, rapidly forgetting that their hands ever hurt in the first place.


End file.
